Volume : 3, Issue : 3, March - 2014
Lack of Awareness on Aids A Cause for Exclusiveness A Study
Sunder Arumugam, K. Selvarajan
Abstract :
In India, as elsewhere, AIDS is perceived as a disease of “others” – of people living on the margins of society, whose lifestyles are considered “perverted” and “sinful.” Discrimination, Stigmatization, and Denial (DSD) are the expected outcomes of such values, affecting life in families, communities, workplaces, schools, and health care settings. At the beginning of 1986, despite over 20,000 reported AIDS cases worldwide, India had no reported cases of HIV or AIDS. There was recognition though, that this would not be the case for long and concerns were raised about how India would cope once HIV and AIDS cases started to emerge. In the year 1986, India’s first cases of HIV were diagnosed among sex workers in Chennai, Tamil Nadu.
At this juncture, the researchers had intellectual discomfort after going through lot of literature that created an interest to study on HIV/AIDS among college students. The study was undertaken in Arignar Anna Government Arts College in the Karaikal District of the Union Territory of Puducherry with the aim to find out the quantum of knowledge of AIDS, among the post graduate students.
Even though other studies among college students in India and aoad have reported good knowledge of HIV/AIDS. The study was done among the Post Graduate students belonging to the Departments of Social Work, Public Administration, Commerce and Economics. A total of 43 students (16 boys & 27 girls) responded to the David Pelletier (Nov 2003) Questionnaire. All those (students) who attended the college on the day (08.07.2011) of the data collection participated in the study. Karaikal, being a small town in the Union Territory of Puducherry, is surrounded by rural areas from where most of the students come with deep rooted traditional ideas. Economic backwardness of the students adds to the woe. Moreover, the lack of interest and constructive interaction to update their knowledge keeps them out of the track, thereby giving them a ight chance to marginalize the person infected with HIV/ AIDS. So, an attempt has been made to study the Quantum of Knowledge about HIV/AIDS among the Post Graduate students of Arignar Anna Govt. Arts College and thereby helping them in all necessary ways, to avoid such marginalization.
Few important and astonishing findings of the study states that 21% of the respondents are of the view that sharing the cup of an AIDS infected person would get AIDS. 7% of the respondents are of the view that AIDS can be cured by jumping up and down on one foot in the rain.47% of the respondents opine that insects transmit HIV. 28% of the respondents are of the opinion that one can be infected with HIV by sleeping around. 47% of the respondents say that one can get HIV from toilet seats. Since, the students are the core elements of the society their knowledge should be enriched in such a manner to remove marginalization towards inclusiveness through Red Ribbon Clubs to impart basic knowledge on HIV / AIDS at regular intervals.
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