[Knowledge and attitudes of a public school's adolescents on sexual transmission of HIV].

The research objectives were to describe the knowledge about the transmission of HIV/AIDS, analyze the sexual behavior and attitudes towards condom use among adolescents. Exploratory survey conducted in 2009 with 234 students of a school in Fortaleza, Brazil. We used semi - structured questionnaire and Likert Scale. The results showed that 46.6% of the sample have already initiated sexual life, 40.7% and 29.5% did not use condoms at the first or last intercourse, respectively, due to various reasons like not having a condom at the time (27.3%), use of contraceptive pill (15.2%) and trust in their partner (15.2%). These teenagers have questions about HIV transmission. Women were more favorable to condom use than men. One conclude that early initiation of sexual life, doubts about HIV transmission and ineffective condom use are factors that make young people's vulnerability.