AIDS information and Italian youth: survey on military recruits

In order to evaluate knowledge and attitudes of Italian youth about AIDS, we carried out a survey on 3,300 military recruits. The dominant source of information was television (60%), while newspapers were much more important for recruits with high level education (48% against 37%). Although the AIDS information given by the media was judged by the recruits sufficient and good in quality, over 85% of the youth would like to receive more of it. Accordingly, knowledge appears insufficient about important aspects such as vehicles of infection and efficacy of preventive measures, mainly among the least educated subjects. Influence of the AIDS problem on the social life appears moderate, but about 50% of the recruits indicated a possible limitation of sexual freedom. Our results show that the education level and the social characteristic of the geographic areas where the target population lives should be kept in mind in programming mass information strategies, and emphasize the need for systematically monitoring the results of educational campaigns.