JORIND (9)1 June, 2011. ISSN 1596-8303. www.transcampus.org/journals. www.ajol.info/journals/jorind PSYCHO-CULTURAL VARIABLES PREDICTING ATTITUDE OF STUDENTS’ TOWARDS HIV COUNSELLING AND TESTING IN SELECTED TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS IN LAGOS STATE, NIGERIA. Olujide Adekeye, Augustine Ebiai and Sussan Olufunmilola Adeusi Department of Psychology, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria E-mail: oadekeye@covenantuniversity.com, aebiai@yahoo.com, funmiswayas@yahoo.com Abstract The aim of the present study was to assess attitude of young people (n=287, mean=20.5 years) towards testing for HIV/AIDS. The participants completed a standard socio-demographic questionnaire, indicating sexual behaviour, cultural beliefs and practices, attitude to HCT, and knowledge of HIV/AIDS. Descriptive and inferential statistics at 0.05 alpha level were used to analyze the data. The study indicates that most participants have poor knowledge of HCT centres in their communities, but had a fairly high knowledge level of HIV. The findings of this study include that there is a significant difference in the disposition to HCT between respondents who have experienced sexual intercourse and those who have not (t = 3.866, df = 285: p<0.05) and between male and female respondents (t = 4.775, df = 285; p< 0.05). The study also shows that knowledge of HIV/AIDS was the strongest predictor of attitude of young people towards HCT ( = 0.547; t = 3.458 p<0.05), closely followed by cultural practices ( = 0.324; t = 2.740 p<0.05) while sexual behaviour was not a strong predictor ( = 0.041; t = 0.543 p>0.05). The present study challenged the adequacy of reproductive health knowledge available to Nigerian students and based on the findings in this study, it was recommended that young people should be sufficiently enlightened and counselled on the imperative of HIV counselling and testing. Keywords: HIV counselling and testing (HCT), young people, attitude, knowledge of HIV/AIDS Introduction Infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) remains a major global threat to good health. HIV/AIDS cases have been reported in all regions of the world, it is become a major health issue in Nigeria (HDR, 2004; Adekeye, 2005). Most people living with HIV/AIDS (95%) reside in the low- and middle-income countries, where most new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths occur (UNAIDS, 2006). Young people between ages 15 and 24 years are at risk on an unparalleled scale (UNESCO, 2006; UNICEF, UNAIDS, WHO, 2002). It is estimated that about 3.8 million people are living with HIV in Nigeria, which implies that one out of every seven Africans living with HIV is a Nigerian. According to a recent estimate, almost 16,000 new infections occur everyday in the world, 90 percent of which occurs in Africa (UNAIDS 2007). Young people constitute an important segment of the worlds total population and 50- 60% of new cases of HIV are among this group. Although issues surrounding young people are multifaceted, the study focused on some psycho-cultural variables such as knowledge of HIV/AIDS, cultural influence and sexual behavioural disposition of young people to predicting their attitude to HIV counselling and testing (HCT). The terms young people and adolescents are used synonymously in this study to refer to people between 15 and 24 years. The World Health 431