Conhecimentos acerca das DST's / AIDS entre estuantes do ensino médio.

Abstract

STDs and AIDS are health problems that has grown dramatically in recent decades, requiring health agencies to adopt measures to combat, through awareness campaigns and condom distribution, in order to seek to minimize this advancement that has affected thousands of young people and adolescents worldwide. Studies show that young people and teenagers are starting too early sexual practice, which makes them more vulnerable to contamination of STD / AIDS. Given these factors, the present study aims at evaluating the knowledge of students from private schools about STD's and AIDS. This is a descriptive study, in which we used a semi-structured questionnaire which sought to verify the knowledge of adolescents in relation to STDs and AIDS and analyze the means by which students acquire information about these health problems. Participants were 36 students at a private school in the city of Cajazeiras - PB, 13 males and 23 females, with ages ranging between 15 and 19 years, these students of the 3rd year. Data collection took place with students from 3rd of a private school education. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics made with the aid of the statistical package SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) in its version 15.0. The results show that young people are knowledgeable of the health problems related to STDs and AIDS. It was found that the wheels of conversations between friends and the media are the main vehicles of information on these health problems. Realized also that intercourse occurring increasingly early and many of these young people do not use condoms. Thus, we found that adolescents have knowledge and information about concepts related to STD / AIDS, but there was a deficiency in the practical behavior of protection from the exercise of sexuality, thereby generating a risk behavior. This jeopardizes the decision-making behaviors of protection. Emphasizing the need for the development of an ongoing program within schools and in partnership with health institutions, to promote the development of interactive practices that enables the adolescent to applicability of their knowledge in their everyday relationships.