Marseille 2007
| Abstract #234 - Using the Theory of Planned Behavior to Understand Condom Use among Rural Internet-Using MSM | ||||
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Session: 20.2: New tools, new toys (Parallel) on Monday @ 14.00-16.00 in PR Chaired by John De Wit, Seth Kalichman Authors: Presenting Author: Ms Candice Daniel - U. Wyoming, United States |
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| Additional Authors: Ms Anne Bowen, | ||||
| Aim: Men who have sex with men (MSM) who go online to find sexual partners have been shown to be at increased risk for contracting HIV. Rural MSM commonly report using the Internet as a primary tool to find sexual partners. Additionally, in Wyoming, an overwhelmingly rural state, new incidents of HIV have increased dramatically in recent years. Understanding the cognitive and behavioral factors that lead to high-risk sexual behaviors among rural MSM who go online to find sexual partners will be particularly helpful for developing prevention strategies. The present study utilized the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to identify predictors of intention to use condoms and prior sexual risk behaviors among 181 Internet using rural MSM. | ||||
| Method / Issue: The men were recruited through Internet banners ads and completed the survey anonymously online. Survey items included: attitude towards condom use, as measured by self-efficacy and outcome expectancy, intention to use condoms, and prior sexual risk behavior. | ||||
| Results / Comments: Using multiple regression analyses, results indicate that attitude towards condom use successfully predicted intention to use condoms with new partners (R = .67) and casual partners (R = .52) among this sample of rural MSM. In addition, intention to use condoms predicted prior condom use behavior (R = .12). However, we did not find support for the full model. | ||||
| Discussion: Results indicate that attitude towards condom use, determined by outcome expectancy and self-efficacy, effectively predicts intentions to use condoms with both new and casual partners among rural MSM. Focusing prevention efforts to target increasing self-efficacy and outcome expectancies regarding condom use should increase overall intention to use condoms within this population. In addition, the results indicate that intentions to use condoms with new and casual partners predicted condom use behaviors among the sample. Increasing intentions to use condoms is likely to increase condom use behaviors among rural MSM. Unfortunately, we failed to obtain support for the full model. These results are likely due to the large effect of attitude when predicting intention, in addition to the correlated nature of the constructs. | ||||
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