The purposes of this study were to describe the information level of undergraduate college students in two major universities regarding AIDS and to describe changes in students' sexual behavior because of the AIDS epidemic. Additionally, the study examined the role of the professional nurse in campus health services in counseling/teaching college students about AIDS and the use of college health services by students who had concerns about AIDS.

Data were collected by way of voluntary, anonymous questionnaires from a sample of 208 students and 41 nurses in two midwestern states between April 15, 1988 and June 15, 1988. The results were tabulated to obtain the frequency and percentage of responses to each question.

The major findings of the study revealed that college students worried about the past and present behavior and the chance they would contract AIDS. They had increased their use of condoms and decreased the number of sexual partners because of AIDS. However, students had attended very few campus sponsored AIDS programs and stated a preference for obtaining information about AIDS from the popular media. Students' responses on a quiz about the disease indicated that they knew about half of the information quite well, but had deficits in the important matters of contracting AIDS through sexual intercourse. Student responses were tabulated by sex. The sexes differed in matters pertaining to AIDS information and level of sexual activity. Student willingness to use nurses in campus health services decreased as the nature of their illnesses became increasingly personal or sexual in nature. Campus health nurses confirmed that students do not use college health services for concerns about AIDS. It is recommended that campus health nurses market college health services so that students use them as a source of information and help about sexually transmitted diseases, especially the deadly disease, AIDS.