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How Little Do We Know about HIV and STIs Prevention? Results from a Web-Based Survey among the General Population

Background: Prevention campaigns have led to a significant decrease in new HIV diagnoses in Western Europe, while other sexual transmitted infections (STIs) have shown an opposite trend. Several educational programs are promoted among young students, whereas informational campaigns addressing the ge...

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Autores principales: De Vito, Andrea, Colpani, Agnese, Zauli, Beatrice, Meloni, Maria Chiara, Fois, Marco, Fiore, Vito, Pintus, Giovanni Antonio, Nardi, Vincenzo Gesualdo, Babudieri, Sergio, Madeddu, Giordano
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9222353/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35742110
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare10061059
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author De Vito, Andrea
Colpani, Agnese
Zauli, Beatrice
Meloni, Maria Chiara
Fois, Marco
Fiore, Vito
Pintus, Giovanni Antonio
Nardi, Vincenzo Gesualdo
Babudieri, Sergio
Madeddu, Giordano
author_facet De Vito, Andrea
Colpani, Agnese
Zauli, Beatrice
Meloni, Maria Chiara
Fois, Marco
Fiore, Vito
Pintus, Giovanni Antonio
Nardi, Vincenzo Gesualdo
Babudieri, Sergio
Madeddu, Giordano
author_sort De Vito, Andrea
collection PubMed
description Background: Prevention campaigns have led to a significant decrease in new HIV diagnoses in Western Europe, while other sexual transmitted infections (STIs) have shown an opposite trend. Several educational programs are promoted among young students, whereas informational campaigns addressing the general population are scarce. We aimed to investigate the level of awareness regarding STIs among the general population. Methods: We proposed a questionnaire regarding STIs and HIV to the general population in Italy. We assigned 1 point to correct, 0.5 point to partially correct, and 0 point to wrong answers. We collected data about age, sex, region of origin, level of education and whether they were health workers. Results: Overall, 2183 people answered the questionnaire, of which 555 aged over 50 years old. Being male, older than 50 years old, retired or unemployed, not educated, and no regular use of condoms were associated with lower scores. Only 16% of participants knew the Undetectable = Untransmittable (U = U) campaign. Overall, 2131 (97.6%) people think more educational campaigns should be offered. Of interest, 80% said the questionnaire led them to learn more about HIV and STIs. Conclusion: Our study reveals several gaps in general population awareness about HIV and STIs, especially among people aged over 50 years old. Most participants stated that the questionnaire was a learning opportunity. These data suggest that improvement of knowledge could start from easy-to-dispose medium, such as surveys and questionnaires delivered through social media. Furthermore, particular attention should be paid to population segmentation and campaign tailoring to enhance interventions effectiveness. Our data reinforce the need for more informational and educational campaigns tailored to the specific segments of the population.
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spelling pubmed-92223532022-06-24 How Little Do We Know about HIV and STIs Prevention? Results from a Web-Based Survey among the General Population De Vito, Andrea Colpani, Agnese Zauli, Beatrice Meloni, Maria Chiara Fois, Marco Fiore, Vito Pintus, Giovanni Antonio Nardi, Vincenzo Gesualdo Babudieri, Sergio Madeddu, Giordano Healthcare (Basel) Article Background: Prevention campaigns have led to a significant decrease in new HIV diagnoses in Western Europe, while other sexual transmitted infections (STIs) have shown an opposite trend. Several educational programs are promoted among young students, whereas informational campaigns addressing the general population are scarce. We aimed to investigate the level of awareness regarding STIs among the general population. Methods: We proposed a questionnaire regarding STIs and HIV to the general population in Italy. We assigned 1 point to correct, 0.5 point to partially correct, and 0 point to wrong answers. We collected data about age, sex, region of origin, level of education and whether they were health workers. Results: Overall, 2183 people answered the questionnaire, of which 555 aged over 50 years old. Being male, older than 50 years old, retired or unemployed, not educated, and no regular use of condoms were associated with lower scores. Only 16% of participants knew the Undetectable = Untransmittable (U = U) campaign. Overall, 2131 (97.6%) people think more educational campaigns should be offered. Of interest, 80% said the questionnaire led them to learn more about HIV and STIs. Conclusion: Our study reveals several gaps in general population awareness about HIV and STIs, especially among people aged over 50 years old. Most participants stated that the questionnaire was a learning opportunity. These data suggest that improvement of knowledge could start from easy-to-dispose medium, such as surveys and questionnaires delivered through social media. Furthermore, particular attention should be paid to population segmentation and campaign tailoring to enhance interventions effectiveness. Our data reinforce the need for more informational and educational campaigns tailored to the specific segments of the population. MDPI 2022-06-08 /pmc/articles/PMC9222353/ /pubmed/35742110 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare10061059 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
De Vito, Andrea
Colpani, Agnese
Zauli, Beatrice
Meloni, Maria Chiara
Fois, Marco
Fiore, Vito
Pintus, Giovanni Antonio
Nardi, Vincenzo Gesualdo
Babudieri, Sergio
Madeddu, Giordano
How Little Do We Know about HIV and STIs Prevention? Results from a Web-Based Survey among the General Population
title How Little Do We Know about HIV and STIs Prevention? Results from a Web-Based Survey among the General Population
title_full How Little Do We Know about HIV and STIs Prevention? Results from a Web-Based Survey among the General Population
title_fullStr How Little Do We Know about HIV and STIs Prevention? Results from a Web-Based Survey among the General Population
title_full_unstemmed How Little Do We Know about HIV and STIs Prevention? Results from a Web-Based Survey among the General Population
title_short How Little Do We Know about HIV and STIs Prevention? Results from a Web-Based Survey among the General Population
title_sort how little do we know about hiv and stis prevention? results from a web-based survey among the general population
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9222353/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35742110
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare10061059
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