Knowledge and Attitude of Couples, Referring to Kerman Pre-marriage Counseling Center, towards AIDS, 2008

AIDS is not only a health problem but also a socio-cultural challenge leading to economic problems. Since appropriate health behavior is the result of adequate knowledge and attitude, this study was performed on couples, referring to Kerman pre-marriage counseling center, to determine their knowledge and attitude towards AIDS and its related factors. In this cross-sectional study, 1020 couples participated. Data was collected using a questionnaire concerning demographic information, and including 22 questions about knowledge and 10 items about attitude. According to our findings, the couples’ knowledge level was excellent in 40.1%, good in 37.4%, moderate in 20% and poor in 2.6%. The attitude was excellent in 58.4%, good in 33.5%, moderate in 7.1% and poor in 1.1%. There was a significant relationships between knowledge and attitude with age, educational status and career using Chi-square test (P=0.0001 in all cases) in a way that those with higher educational levels, in age group between 16 to 35 years old and employees had better knowledge and more positive attitude. There was also a significant relationship between attitude and sex (P=0.0001); male participants showed more positive attitude compared with women. Among sources of knowledge, radio and TV were the most frequently mentioned ones (59.9%). Our results suggest that TV and radio are the most frequent information resources so improving their related educational programs according to addressed group is necessary. More attention to health education in schools accompanied with cooperation and supervision of health sector is recommended.