College Students and AIDS Awareness: The Effects of Condom Perception and Self-Efficacy

This paper examined the attitudes and perceptions of urban college students regarding Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) awareness and prevention. AIDS has devastated the lives of citizens in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that the AIDS incidence rate for young Americans between the ages of 13 to 25 years rose nearly 20 percent, and approximately 50 percent of new infections are among individuals who are younger than 25 years old. Therefore, finding better methods to communicate AIDS risk knowledge to those Americans who are at greater risk of infection is paramount in the fight against this deadly scourge. We measured AIDS risk knowledge, self efficacy, and condom perception using three scales. Regression and analysis of variance techniques were employed to evaluate the hypotheses. Findings indicate significant age, gender and class rank effects for self-efficacy and condom perception among participants. Condom perception significantly predicted AIDS risk knowledge. Males reported higher self-efficacy and condom perception scores than females, and younger participants reported higher self-efficacy scores than older participants.