The aim of this research was to identify the opinion of college students about people living with HIV/AIDS, according to gender and graduation fields. The participants were 503 university students, 53% of which were women, from humanities, exact sciences and health sciences fields. A questionnaire was applied with a Likert scale of five points. The questions: the employer should dismiss an employee and HIV+ children should be forbidden to go to school were answered with disagreement by health sciences students, with significant differences from the other groups of students. The questions: women infected by HIV should avoid pregnancy and a person infected by HIV is responsible for his/her health condition, the agreeing and disagreeing answers had a similar distribution among the groups of students. No differences between genders were found. The results indicate the need to discuss the subject and modify beliefs and misconceptions about people living with HIV/AIDS among higher level education groups.
HIV; AIDS; College students; Prejudice
