Objective: To assess the knowledge about AIDS among the married women in field practice areas of a tertiary care hospital.

Methods: The study was carried out on married women in the age group 15-45 years in both urban and rural areas of field practice areas of a tertiary care hospital. The study was carried out in both urban and rural areas using 30 cluster sampling technique as suggested by WHO. The women in the age group of 15-45 years from each cluster were interviewed and information was collected on a pretested questionnaire based on syndromic approach. It was proposed to cover 16 women per cluster both in urban and rural areas and finally, a total of 480 women each from urban and rural areas were included in the study.

Results: About one third (30.7%) of women had knowledge about AIDS of whom 32.5% were from urban area and 29% were from rural area. The majority of the women of urban areas were of the view that transmission of the disease is due to having sex with multiple partners (47.4 %). The women who had knowledge about AIDS were asked about preventive measures to be taken in the prevention of AIDS. The majority of the women (65.6 %) were not sure that whether there is possibility of having AIDS through STDs.

Conclusion: With the observations in the present study, it is clear that the awareness in rural areas among women is low as compared with the urban counterpart in the study areas. Therefore, the knowledge and awareness should be raised by the Government agencies as well as by Non-Government Agencies (NGOs) in both urban and rural areas.

Keywords: HIV/AIDS, Knowledge, Urban and rural areas.

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Dr (Col) Rajendra Harnagle

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