Knowledge of sex workers about HIV/AIDS and its influence on sexual practices.

Objective: assess the knowledge of sex workers about HIV/AIDS and its influence on sexual practices.

Method: Ninety women participated in the study. The Scientific Knowledge Test about HIV/AIDS and sexual practices was used.

Obese children are thin in parents' eyes: A psychologically, socially, or culturally driven bias?

Although obesity presents a serious health problem in children, parents often underestimate their children's overweight and obesity status. Therefore, scientific literature was systematically screened through PubMed and PsycINFO to demonstrate the psychological, social, and cultural processes that underlie this evaluation bias. A total of 37 papers that focused on research conducted in different geopolitical contexts were taken into account.

Social representations and normative beliefs of aging.

This study adopted the theory of social representations as a theoretical framework in order to characterize similarities and differences in social representations and normative beliefs of aging for different age groups. The 638 participants responded to self-administered questionnaire and were equally distributed by sex and age. The results show that aging is characterized by positive stereotypes (knowledge and experience); however, retirement is linked to aging, but in a negative way, particularly for men, involving illness, loneliness and disability.

[The social representations theory in Brazilian nursing research].

This study aimed to examine methodological issues in the theses and dissertations that used social representations theory (SRT) in Brazilian nursing. Twenty-two dissertations and 44 theses were considered. Categorical content analysis was applied, based on five aspects: objects studied, place of SRT, the number of study participants, data collection techniques and data analysis.

Social representations, risk behaviors and AIDS.

This study's interest relies on adolescents' social representations of unprotected sex, more precisely on the relationship between the attitude towards the preservative and the reason attribution for its non use. 1386 secondary school students took part in the study, in the Brazilian cities of Florianópolis, Itajaí and Balneário Camboriú. In order to verify reasons attributed by the students, we focused on the sample that had sexual experiences without using the condom during last year.

[AIDS, sexuality and attitude of adolescents about protection against HIV].

Objective: To describe the role of sexual experience based on information and sociocultural contexts for the risk of HIV/AIDS transmission in adolescents.

Methods: A questionnaire was answered by 1,386 middle school students from the state of Santa Catarina, Southern Brazil, in 2000. The instrument included the following variables: personal characteristics, sexual experience, communication context and knowledge on AIDS, attitudes towards condom use, risk and protective behaviors and feelings.