Abstract: Objective To evaluate a 5-year HIV/AIDS education project among middle school students, and discuss advantages and disadvantages of this project so as to provide scientific evidences for future intervention.
Methods The results of the survey in 2005 were used as the baseline data to compare with those from the survey in 2009. For each survey, the random cluster sampling method was used to select students, and each student was investigated by the uniform questionnaire.
Results In 2005, only 27.2% of the middle school students correctly answered the five core questions about HIV/AIDS. The HIV awareness rate was higher in senior middle schools, girls, and urban middle school than in junior middle schools, boys and rural middle schools respectively. After the 5-year continuous education project, the HIV awareness rate reached 95.9%. In junior middle schools, the proportion of students who had tolerant attitude toward HIV carriers remained at a level of 70%, but the proportion of student repellent against HIV carriers raised from 13.7% to 28.6% during the 5-year period. In senior middle schools, the proportion of students with tolerant attitude to HIV carriers raised from 66.4% to 78.1%, while that of students with discriminative repellent attitude remained at 16%. The newspaper, magazine, broadcast, and free education materials were the most important media for HIV awareness, covering 90% of the middle school students.
Conclusion The project significantly improved the HIV awareness of middle school students in Luannan County. However, the number of students with tolerant attitude to HIV carriers increased a little, and the actual means through which the students obtained HIV/AIDS knowledge were not in accordance with those the students preferred. It is necessary to explore new health education modes adapting to the mental characteristics of middle school students.

Key words: acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, middle school student, education, effectiveness