Knowledge and Attitude about HIV/AIDS among medical students in a private medical college in coastal Karnataka

BACKGROUND: The understanding of HIV/AIDS by MBBS students and their attitudes towards managing a retropositive patient will impact their practice in future. OBJECTIVES: To study the knowledge and attitude about HIV/AIDS among medical students and to analyse change in knowledge levels based on year of study of MBBS. METHODOLOGY: A cross-sectional questionnaire based study was conducted in a private medical college in Karnataka among 610 MBBS students. Aspects regarding general and clinical knowledge of HIV/AIDS, attitude towards HIV infected patients were dealt with. RESULTS: An increasing trend in the knowledge from 1st to 4th year was seen in the following aspects: knowledge regarding vertical transmission (78% to 93.3%), transmission through breast feeding (31.9% to 85.3%), tuberculosis as the most common opportunistic infection in HIV/AIDS (26.9% to 70%), correct time of initiation of post exposure prophylaxis (5% to 46.7%), facility for getting HIV test done confidentially (0.6% to 42.7%). An increasing trend in the negative attitude towards HIV patients was seen from 1st to 4th year when it came to right to refuse surgical treatment to HIV patient (40% to 56%) and an increasing trend in the favourable response towards HIV patients were seen from 1st year to 4th year when it came to their opinion whether HIV patients can be kept in general ward (57.5% to 78%). CONCLUSION: From the above study we conclude that the knowledge level on HIV/AIDS improved based on year of study. Discriminatory attitude towards HIV patients still persisted among students of all the years