Knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, and perceptions of risk related to HIV/AIDS among Chinese university students in Hunan, China

The purpose of this paper is to describe HIV/AIDS knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions and identify personal risk behaviors among undergraduate students in China. A descriptive, cross-sectional survey of 1326 students between ages 17 through 28 was conducted in 2002. Results indicated that students held considerable misconceptions about HIV transmission by casual contact and needle sharing as well as stigmatizing attitudes about injection drug use, homosexuality and HIV-positive women who bear children. Results indicated that 14% of Chinese university students are sexually active and risk behaviors tended to increase with age. Additionally, 24% of the students considered themselves to be at moderate to very high risk of contracting HIV and 40% of sexually active students never used condoms. Therefore, it is important to design HIV prevention strategies that target university students in China.