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Background The AIDS epidemic among young students is serious, and effective preventive interventions are urgently needed. Game-based intervention has become an innovative way to change healthy behaviors, and we have developed an AIDS educational game called AIDS Fighter · Health Defense. Objective In this study, we tested the effect of AIDS Fighter · Health Defense on young students in improving AIDS-related knowledge, stigma, and attitude related to high-risk behaviors in Southwest China. Methods A randomized controlled trial was conducted from September 14 to 27, 2020. In total, 96 students from 2 classes in a middle school were selected by stratified cluster sampling in Luzhou City, Southwest China. The students were randomly divided into the intervention group (n=50, 52%) and the control group (n=46, 48%). The intervention group played the AIDS educational game AIDS Fighter · Health Defense; the control group learned AIDS-related knowledge through independent learning on the QQ chat group. An AIDS-related knowledge questionnaire, a stigma scale, and an attitude questionnaire on AIDS-related high-risk behaviors were used to measure the effect of the AIDS educational game via face-to-face interviews. The user experience of the game was assessed using the Educational Game User Experience Evaluation Scale. The difference was statistically significant at P≤.05. Results After the intervention, the AIDS knowledge awareness rate (X̅ [SD], %) of the intervention and control groups were 70.09 (SD 11.58) and 57.49 (SD 16.58), with t=4.282 and P<.001. The stigma scores of the 2 groups were 2.44 (SD 0.57) and 2.48 (SD 0.47), with t=0.373 and P=0.71. The positive rate (X̅ [SD], %) of attitudes of high-risk AIDS behaviors of the 2 groups were 82.00 (SD 23.44) and 79.62 (SD 17.94), with t=0.555 and P=0.58. The mean percentage of the game evaluation was 54.73% as excellent, 31.45% as good, 13.09% as medium, and 0.73% as poor. Conclusions AIDS Fighter · Health Defense could increase AIDS-related knowledge among young students, but the effect of the game in reducing AIDS-related stigma and improving the attitudes of high-risk AIDS behaviors was not seen. Long-term effects and large-scale studies are needed to assess the efficacy of game-based intervention. Trial Registration Chinese Clinical Trial Registry ChiCTR2000038230; https://trialsearch.who.int/Trial2.aspx?TrialID=ChiCTR2000038230

Background Although great progress has been made in the prevention and treatment of AIDS, there are still a considerable number of new infections annually, especially in adolescents. With the advance of technology, game-based education has gradually become an important tool for changing healthy behaviors among youth. Methods A protocol for conducting a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the “AIDS Fighter · Health Defense”, a game-based AIDS education project aimed at improving the ability of adolescents to prevent AIDS. During the four-week intervention, participants will receive: 1) A virus combat game; 2) Goal setting to eliminate HIV; 3) Questions to be answered to be resurrected in the game; 4) Points ranking; 5) Recognition and Rewards. The primary outcomes include changes in participants’ knowledge, stigma attitude, and risk behaviors attitude related to AIDS after four weeks of intervention. The secondary outcomes are the participants’ AIDS-related risk behaviors three and six months after the intervention. Discussion AIDS Fighter· Health Defense may be an innovative approach to help adolescents improve AIDS prevention capabilities, fill the gap in game-based AIDS prevention education in China, and gain experience of AIDS management. Trial registration Chinese Clinical Trial Registry: ChiCTR2000040195. Registered 25 November 2020.

Background: With the increasing number of HIV infected students in China, it is necessary to investigate AIDS-related knowledge-attitude-practice among students, which is helpful to formulate effective AIDS health education measures for students.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with students aged 15-24 years. University college students (n=1,744) were surveyed with a sampling in western China. The data were collected from May to November 2019 through both face-to-face and online survey. Data were analysed using logistic regression and multiple regression analysis.Results：A total of 1,744 questionnaires were included in the data analysis, including 890 females (51.0%), with a mean age of 19.43 (±1.27) years; 344 (19.7%) of students knew that the effective time for post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) was within 72 hours. The influencing factors of AIDS discrimination of students included gender, residential area, education and major; 235 (13.5%) students reported having had sex; 38 reported having had commercial or temporary sexual partners and most (n=31) of these were males; 131 (56.5%) students reported never or sometimes used condoms during sex.Conclusions: The awareness rate of AIDS among students in west China is low; especially the awareness rate of PEP is the lowest. Condom use is low among students, who look for sexual partners through the Internet; men are more likely than women to engage in risky sexual behavior. The results of this study show that AIDS knowledge is not sufficient to change the attitudes and behaviors of students. However, AIDS health education is an important means to prevent and control AIDS, and more contact to people living with HIV may help reduce AIDS discrimination.