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Historically, statistics reveal that the population mostly exposed to HIV / AIDS are people between ages of 20 and 34, which are young adults where knowledge and ways to acquire them are associated as a risk factor of the population to obtain the disease and that require the attention from the authorities. Objective: To diagnose the level of knowledge, means consulted and methods of prevention used for their protection during sexual activities. Materials and methods: The study focuses on the population of young students from the University of Panama enrolled in the year 2016. The sample consisted of 310 students. For the data collection an instrument validated by experts and a pilot test was used. Results: The results show that the distribution of the sample was 60% (187) women and 40% (123) men. Of this total, 90% of the students were single, 36.5% (113) single men and 53.2% (165) single women, 0.6% did not respond. Less than half of the students said to had knowledge about HIV, and more than half had sexual experience. Relationships with the same couple stand out as the method of prevention. The media are the most popular source of consultation; however they consider that schools should be provided more information on the subject. Conclusions: Young people need more high quality information about HIV. There are still risky behaviors such as having sex at an early age (16 years old on average), where only 52% used condom in their first sexual relationship as a preventive measure.