Changes in attitude, sexual behaviour and the risk of HIV/AIDS transmission in Southwest Nigeria

To determine the current trends in sexual behaviors associated with HIV transmission in Nigeria 29 randomly selected adolescents and adults from Ado-Ekiti 72 from Ibadan and 107 from Lagos responded to survey questions on their HIV/AIDS-related knowledge attitudes and practices. Only 52% of the 400 people initially approached agreed to participate and 197 eventually completed the questionnaire. 56.4% of respondents were male and 131 (66.5%) were sexually active. 91.4% of subjects had general knowledge of AIDS 79.4% knew it is an incurable disease and 95.9% were aware of condoms. 44 men (52.4%) and 31 women (70.5%) were completely knowledgeable of the routes of HIV transmission while 36% of men and 23% of women had a good knowledge of the routes. However despite that knowledge only 25% of sexually active respondents used condoms consistently 55% did so inconsistently and 20% not at all. More than 60% of sexually active respondents had 2 or more sex partners with significantly more males than females having that number of sex partners. 18% of sexually active respondents had a history of sex with prostitutes and 25% had a history of at least one sexually transmitted disease. Being in a stable sexual relationship a history of having sex with prostitutes self-perception of testing positive for HIV infection and self-perception of HIV/AIDS risk in Nigeria were significant determinants of condom use among the sexually active. The high prevalence of condom use relative to that reported in earlier studies suggests a decline in high-risk sex behaviors among inhabitants of urban southwest Nigeria. Of concern most sexually active adolescents who perceived themselves to be at high risk of being infected with HIV had never used condoms.