A school-based AIDS education programme for secondary school students in Nigeria: a review of effectiveness

Nigerian secondary school students are becoming sexually active at an incre asing earlier age. Sexually active students are at risk of contacting STDs, including HIV infection. As a result, health education initiatives to incr ease level of knowledge, influence attitudes and encourage safe sexual prac tices are being implemented in schools, but the effectiveness of these prog rammes have not been evaluated. In this study, the knowledge, attitude and sexual risk behaviors of 223 students who received a comprehensive health e ducation intervention were compared with 217 controls. At post-test, interv ention students exhibited greater knowledge about HIV/AIDS transmission and prevention (P < 0.05), Intervention students were less likely to feel AIDS is a white man's disease and were more likely to be tolerant of people liv ing with the disease (P < 0.05). After the intervention, the mean number of reported sexual partners among the experimental students significantly dec reased from 1.51 to 1.06, while it increased from 1.3 to 1.39 among the con trols. Among the intervention students there was also an increase in consis tent use of the condom and the use of the condom at last sexual intercourse . We conclude that students can benefit from specific education programmes that transmit important information necessary to prevent risky behavior, an d improve knowledge and attitudes on HIV/AIDS.