title: Knowledge, attitude, and beliefs of young, college student blood donors about Human immunodeficiency virus.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Young people, who tend to be healthy, idealistic, and motivated, are an excellent pool of potential voluntary unpaid blood donors. Recruiting and retaining young blood donors improves the long term safety and sufficiency of a country's blood supply. Knowledge, attitude, and beliefs about Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) should play an important role in prevention of disease transmission.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study was a questionnaire based survey, conducted to explore the levels of knowledge, attitude, and beliefs about HIV in young college student blood donors.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The results showed that the proportion of participants with comprehensive knowledge of HIV prevention and transmission was lesser than expected. Increase in education level and male gender was found to be significantly associated with high HIV-related knowledge. The responses on the different aspects of HIV-related attitude were also varied and there is still stigma associated with Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) even in the educated groups.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There was a spectrum of myths and misperceptions emphasizing the need of education that recognizes the social context of attitude towards HIV. Results from this study may contribute to the development of appropriate educational and training material for this group of donors which in turn, may assist in achieving the elusive goal of safe blood supply in future.
authors.affiliation: Department of Transfusion Medicine, Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India.
authors.forename: Anju
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dubey
authors.affiliation: Department of Transfusion Medicine, Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India.
authors.forename: Atul
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sonker
authors.affiliation: Department of Transfusion Medicine, Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India.
authors.forename: Rajendra K
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Chaudhary
keywords: Attitude; HIV; beliefs; blood donors; college students; knowledge