The purposes of this study were to assess mental
health counselors' knowledge of AIDS and to determine the
effect of various independent variables upon knowledge. The
variables used were gender, professional contact with PWAs,
personal contact with PWAs, age, sexual preference, AIDS
training, and personal acquaintance with a person who is
homosexual. A sample of 358 mental health counselors was
chosen randomly from the current membership of the American
Mental Health Counseling Association which is a division of
the American Association for Counseling and Development.
Data were collected through a self-administered
questionnaire which included a 32-item true-false knowledge
test on the transmission, epidemiology, and treatment of
AIDS as well as general information about AIDS. Chi-square,
t-tests and multiple regression analyses were used at the
.05 level of significance to determine the relationship
between the variables and degree of knowledge.
Mental health counselors scored quite high on most of
the knowledge questions with a mean percentage score of 93%
had a higher knowledge score on epidemiology than females,
yet, when the total knowledge score was examined, there was
not a significant difference. Respondents who had provided
professional services to persons with AIDS within the past
year had higher scores for both the sub-section on
transmission and total knowledge. Subjects who had been
personally acquainted with someone who had been diagnosed
with AIDS showed a higher degre of knowledge, whereas
acquaintance with someone who is homosexual seemed to have
no direct relationship. Although age did not have an effect
on knowledge, homosexual mental health counselors had a
greater degree of knowledge about AIDS than heterosexuals,
and mental health counselors who have had AIDS training have
more knowledge of AIDS then those who have not.
Results indicated that there were no significant
differences in means between knowledge of AIDS and such
factors as religion, work setting, professional degree and
geographic area of residence. However, there was a
significant relationship between knowledge of community
resources and level of knowledge of AIDS.
The study results were reviewed in light of the
literature on AIDS and knowledge of AIDS among various
professional and non-professional groups. Implications and
recommendations for counselor education and clinical
practice as a result of this study are presented. / Graduation date: 1992
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/36747 |
| Date | 19 June 1991 |
| Creators | Turner, Micki |
| Contributors | House, Reese |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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