Marseille 2007
| Abstract #272 - Gender Attitudes, Sexual Power, HIV Risk: A Model for Predicting HIV Risk Behavior of South African Men | ||||
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Session: 37.2: Navigating risk and safety (Parallel) on Tuesday @ 14.00-16.00 in Auditorium/Overflow Chaired by Susan M. Kiene, Danuta Kasprzyk Authors: Presenting Author: Ms Michelle Kaufman - Center for Health, Intervention & Prevention, University of Connecticut, United States |
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| Additional Authors: Dr Tamara Shefer, Dr Mary Crawford, Dr Seth Kalichman, Dr Leickness Simbayi, | ||||
| Aim: Despite the new inclusion of gender issues in HIV prevention interventions, the relationship between gender attitudes, including attitudes towards women and endorsement of masculine ideology, and the engagement in risky sexual behavior has not yet been adequately examined. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between attitudes towards women and endorsement of traditional male gender roles and HIV risk behavior, as mediated by sexual relationship power, in South African men by building a model called the Gender Attitudes-Sexual Power-Risk (GAPR) model. It was hypothesized that an endorsement of traditional male gender roles and negative attitudes towards women would be positively related to exposure-linked HIV risk behavior (e.g., unprotected vaginal/anal sex, ever had a sexually transmitted infection (STI), never used a condom), that sexual relationship power would be directly related to HIV risk behavior, and that sexual relationship power would mediate the relationship between the gender attitudes and HIV risk behavior. | ||||
| Method / Issue: Survey data was collected from 309 men receiving STI diagnostic and treatment services from a city STI clinic in Cape Town, South Africa. Approximately half of all patients seen at the clinic have previously received STI services, and one in four patients accepts voluntary HIV counseling and testing, of which 25% are HIV positive. Sampling occurred throughout all hours of clinic operation over a four-month period. Participants received 15 South African Rand ZAR to compensate for their time. Surveys were administered in Xhosa, English, or Afrikaans. All participants completed measures of attitudes towards women, masculine ideology, sexual relationship power, and self-reported sexual risk behaviors. An index for exposure-linked HIV risk behavior was created by adding together several dichotomous variables to create an overall risk score. | ||||
| Results / Comments: Structural equation modeling using the GAPR model scale variables was selected as the most appropriate analytic strategy because of the presence of the attitudes towards women latent variable. Results showed that negative attitudes towards women significantly predict a high level of HIV risk behavior among these men, and that endorsement of traditional male roles negatively predicts HIV risk behavior. Endorsement of traditional male gender roles also predicted a low level of relationship control but a high degree of decision-making dominance in ones relationship. The final trimmed and respecified model was a good fit with the data (2(4, N=309) = 2.578, p=.631; CFI = 1.000; and RMSEA = .000). | ||||
| Discussion: The GAPR Model of HIV risk behavior attempts to explore gender attitudes and the sexual relationship power associated with traditional gender roles to predict HIV risk behavior among South African men. In a society where levels of sexism are high, women are often blamed for rape, and incidence of sexual assault is high, it is important to look at how all of these factors may be putting women at increased risk for HIV. By gaining a better understanding of the male role in HIV transmission, particularly as it is tied to masculinity and views of women, future education programs and HIV prevention interventions can take gender issues into account. | ||||
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