Assessing senior secondary school students’ knowledge of Hiv/Aids in Nigeria: Implications for counselling

Abstract

This study examines Senior Secondary School students’ knowledge of HIV/AIDS and the implication of such knowledge for counselling. The study was carried out in Auchi and three hundred and sixty two Senior Secondary School Students participated in the study. Questionnaire was used to elicit information from the respondents that were randomly selected
for the study. The questionnaire was content validated and test and retest method was used to determine its reliability. The respondents included in this study have high knowledge about HIV/AIDS, though such knowledge does not influence their behaviour. That is, there is an inverse relationship between knowledge of HIV/AIDS and risky sexual behaviour among the adolescents or youths in the society. This inverse relationship between knowledge of HIV/AIDS and risky behaviour among this group of adolescents is one of the major challenges faced by counsellors in dealing with the problem of HIV/AIDS among the group in the society. Other challenges faced by counsellors in dealing with the problem in the society, are the attitude of parents, school administrators and government to the teaching of sex education and other sex/health related matters in schools.