Teens Have Misconception About Aids

Many teenagers are afraid of getting AIDS from doctors or other health professionals, according to a survey that found what one researcher called a frightening misconception among youngsters.

Only six of the estimated 1.5 million people who are HIV-infected in the United States are believed to have gotten the virus from a health professional - and all six got it from the same dentist.

“It surprised all the experts, because the experts did not know that teenagers had this misconception,” said the lead researcher on the survey, Dr. Kenneth R. Ginsburg, a specialist in adolescent medicine at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

The 1993 survey of more than 6,800 ninthgraders in 39 Philadelphia public schools was designed to identify what teens most want in a health care provider. Proper hand-washing was at the top of the list, followed by using clean instruments, honesty, respect toward teens and overall cleanliness.

After the survey, researchers learned from 215 youngsters in small discussion groups that the preoccupation with cleanliness was related to the fear of acquiring diseases, particularly AIDS.

In seven of the 21 groups, teens immediately said concern about AIDS explains the importance they attach to hand-washing and overall cleanliness. In the 14 other groups, the initial concern was “germs.” When asked what kind of germs, youngsters in seven of the 14 groups mentioned the AIDS virus.

“Our findings suggest a pressing need for better public education about the near-zero risk of acquiring HIV through routine health care,” the researchers reported in today’s issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association. The survey was funded by private and government sources.

Teens may spurn preventive health care because they are afraid of getting AIDS, Ginsburg said by telephone Monday.

During the discussion groups, Ginsburg said, he told the youngsters that 1.5 million Americans have the AIDS virus, and he asked the teenagers to estimate how many had been infected by health professionals. Most of the youngsters put the number at 100,000 to 250,000, he said.

“That’s frightening that they had that perception, when the reality is six,” he said.

The best-known case, that of Florida dentist Dr. David Acer and patient Kimberly Bergalis, got headlines in 1992. Many of the teens mentioned the case specifically, Ginsburg said.