Bahamian Adolescents: A Survey of their Knowledge, Attitudes and Beliefs About AIDS

This paper reports data from a survey conducted with 260 Bahamian adolescents assessing their knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about AIDS. The results revealed that these adolescents have a high level of knowledge about AIDS. In fact, these adolescents are as knowledgeable about AIDS as adolescents in their normed group, which consisted of low-income African American adolescents. Further, neither males nor females differed in their perceptions about their risk for getting AIDS and in their perceptions about the effectiveness of condoms in preventing the spread of AIDS. Implications for the development of AIDS prevention programmes for Bahamian adolescents are discussed.