Evaluation of a safe sex campaign regarding AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases among young people in The Netherlands.

During the summer of 1989 a mass media campaign against the spread of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) was launched in The Netherlands. The campaign was directed at young people and targeted inappropriate beliefs about the transmission of HIV and STDs. These inappropriate beliefs were considered to function as rationalizations and excuses for individuals and their sexual partners not to take preventive measures. To evaluate the campaign, young people who had noticed the campaign were compared with the ones interviewed at the pre-test. The ones that had not noticed the campaign served as a quasi-experimental control group. The campaign not only reached a sizeable majority of young people, but also succeeded in bringing about some of the desired changes. The risk of HIV infection became personally more relevant to the exposed group and several misconceptions or excuses were less often endorsed. This suggests that a mass media campaign does not have to be restricted to mere attention-raising and increasing factual knowledge, but may be of relevance for other psychosocial processes as well.