The Effect of Participatory Education on Attitude of School Personnel Towards HIV/AIDS

School personnel s knowledge and attitude towards HIV/AIDS have a great role in students knowledge of and attitude to this infection. Studies in Iran show that students and teachers have not adequate knowledge of HIV/AIDS .The aim of this study is to assess the effect of participatory education on attitudes of personnel of schools toward HIV/AIDS. One hundred and fourteen school personnel were selected randomly to participate in an interventional study. The participants took part in a three-day workshop on HIV/AIDS prevention program in schools. The workshop content included the principles of HIV/AIDS and procedures for its control and prevention; the methods used were group discussion and group work for presentation of a HIV/AIDS prevention programme at schools through a logical framework method. A questionnaire was given to the participants to evaluate their knowledge of and attitude toward HIV/AIDS before and after the interventions. The mean age of participants was 40.87 (SD = 6.58). There was no significant relationship between gender/official post/length of service and attitude before or after the workshop. There was a significant change in personnel s attitude to HIV/AIDS after the workshop. There was a significant correlation between the increase of personnel s knowledge of and attitude to HIV/AIDS after the workshop introducing methods such as participatory education and asking participants to suggest a program for prevention and control of HIV/AIDS in their fields are useful for increasing knowledge and changing their attitude toward HIV/AIDS.