Effectiveness of a prevention campaign on HIV/AIDS knowledge among adolescents in Eastern Slovakia

Objectives The aim of this manuscript was to evaluate results of the questionnaire given to young people before and after the prevention campaign to determine whether the prevention campaign improved HIV/AIDS-related knowledge of young people. Methods A total of 533 students completed the pre-test and 496 students completed the post-test. Questionnaire was used as pre/post testing tool. Construct validity and measurement scale were assessed using the factor analysis. Rasch scaling was used to establish common scale for pre/post test and to transform raw score into the interval scale. A non-parametric Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare knowledge in pre-test and post-test. Results Students increased their knowledge of HIV/AIDS (Pearson's measure of effect size r = 0.74) and the risk of acquiring HIV infection (r = 0.68) statistically significantly (p = 0.001). Girls (risk estimation: r = 0.78, knowledge: r = 0.81) improved much more than boys (risk estimation: r = 0.57, knowledge: r = 0.62). Conclusions This study suggests that, for the selected sample, the prevention campaign was an effective tool to increase young people's knowledge of HIV/AIDS. The authors recommend dividing and tailoring interventions by gender to achieve even more efficient preventive future interventions.