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Dr. Ashwaq Ridha Abdulsada Dr. Dalya Talal Fathi Al-Azzawi Sally Saad Zaidan Dr.Dunya Saad Zaidan

Abstract

The study was carried out in the outpatient clinics in Al-Yarmouk teaching hospital in Baghdad city for a period of 5 months extending from January 2020 to May 2021. A total of 400 women were included in the study sample. A systematic random sampling method was used. All married and unmarried women in reproductive age group (15 -50 years) consulting the clinics during the study were eligible for inclusion in study sample. The questionnaire was developed in three main sections: reproductive health related issues, family planning related issues and   HIV related issues. The Knowledge regarding HIV/AIDS: (Having heard about AIDS &source of information, Cause of AIDS, Modes of transmission, Segregation of AIDS patients important or not. Results: A significant association between age, occupation and educational level of women with knowledge (hearing) about AIDS (p<0.001). Marital status was not Significantly associated with that hearing (p>0.005). the sources of knowledge about AIDS were; 83.8% from mass media (TV/radio), 31.2% from magazine/newspaper, the distribution of women according to their knowledge about AIDS as follow: 58.8 % knew that AIDS is caused by a virus and 82.9% knew it as an infectious disease, as well as about 40.2% said that AIDS is a fatal disease, and 75.1% believed that infected persons should be avoided and segregated.so  the modes of AIDS transmission, 90.8 % of women said by sexual intercourse, 59.2% by using contaminated needles. on the other hand, the percentages of women who had misconception about the mode of AIDS transmission were as follow: 24.3% by using toilet and swimming facilities, 21.7 % by eating with AIDS person and 15.6% by insect bite. About diseases classified as STDs: 56.8% said that AIDS is STDs, while 34.8% and 22.8 %of women said that gonorrhea and syphilis respectively are STDs. also, the opinion of these women about using of condom as a method for prevention of transmission of STDs, 58.8% of them didn't knew what is the condom, 13.7 % had a negative attitude towards it, only 27.5% of them knew the benefit of using condom in preventing STDs transmission. the ways of prevention of STDs, 61% of women said by avoiding illegal (extramarital) sexual relation, 44.3 % by premarital examination. Conclusions: Sociodemographic variables significantly associated with knowledge towards RH and AIDS, although most of them had good knowledge about AIDS but some of them still had misconceptions about modes of transmission and some of them thought that AIDS persons should be segregated from the community. The majority of women surveyed had poor knowledge about the condom and     its role in preventing STDs/AIDS.

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Keywords

HIV; AIDS; knowledge; attitude assessment; women; child-bearing age; Iraq

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