Conocimientos y actitudes sobre el SIDA entre los funcionarios penitenciarios

This work sets out to describe a health education experiment carried out amongst a group of prison security staff, which consisted of an AIDS education workshop. 110 guards participated The results were evaluated with a quasi-experimental methodology design, comparing the pre and post data with a χ2 (Chi-squared) test. It was possible to establish the existence of differences in assimilated information before and after attending the course. The results indicate that although the sample used had access to detailed information as to the contagious mechanisms of the illnesses that worried them, fear of infection continued to affect the worker’s attitude when confronted by this syndrome. This may explain why, after the sessions, 90% claimed to know about the transmission mechanisms of AIDS, and about 50% chose wrong answers from infection risk situation questionnaires and expressed irrational forewarned behaviour. Results of transmission of this information to. Results about information transmission confirm high effect, but the results about this information assimilation and its transmission to real life behaviour are poorer. The conclusion is that with this experiment informing is not enough to change attitudes, although it is a necessary preliminary step. Key Words: Health Education. Prisons. AIDS