Perception of HIV-AIDS risk among female secondary school students in Arusha Northern Tanzania

This was a cross-sectional study carried out among eight secondary schools in Arusha, Northern Tanzania. A self-reported questionnaire was administered among 1201 female students for the purpose of investigating the perception of HIV/AIDS risk among secondary school female students. The mean age of the studied girls was 16.9 ± 1.4 years. About 26% of the studied female students reported to be sexually active. The mean age at first sexual intercourse was reported to be 14.5 ± 2.0 years with the median age being 15 years. Of the girls who reported to be sexually active, only 33.2% reported to have ever used condoms while 31% reported having used condoms in their last sexual encounter. About 70% of the girls reported to have one or more sexual partners at the time of the study. The findings indicated that girls' knowledge on how HIV/AIDS is transmitted was particularly high though knowledge on whether condoms prevent HIV/AIDS was relatively low. Furthermore, most girls reported HIV/AIDS to be a very severe disease although few of them perceived themselves to be susceptible to the disease. Even those who perceived themselves to be susceptible to HIV/AIDS could not translate their perceptions into preventive behaviours that are, condom use and self-restraining. It was recommended that efforts should be done in developing health promotion programmes which would help in improving students' knowledge on how HIV/AIDS is transmitted and prevented. These programmes should also promote correct information on the efficacy of condoms as a means of HIV/AIDS prevention among sexually active girls. It was in addition recommended that a systematic HIV/AIDS knowledge study should be conducted to overcome limitations of inferring levels of knowledge from a few unpresentative items. An adequately constructed test in the domain of HIV/AIDS could be used in this regard.