Condom use self-efficacy, personality, and body image in male and female American and British students.
Bauserman, Robert*,1, Shifren, Kim2, Furnham, Adrian3, 1 AIDS Administration, Maryland Department of Health, Baltimore, MD, USA2 Psychology Department, Towson, Maryland, USA3 University College of London, London, England, Great Britain
ABSTRACT- Introduction/Objectives. Condom use plays a crucial role in preventing HIV/STD transmission and in preventing unwanted pregnancy. Condom self-efficacy is one predictor of condom use. Identifying personality and mental health factors that predict condom self-efficacy can help in the design and implementation of prevention programs targeting HIV/STD transmission and unwanted pregnancy. Methods/Results. American (n = 187) and British (n = 142) male and female college students of various racial/ethnic backgrounds completed a condom self-efficacy scale (CSES); a health behaviors inventory (HBI); the instrumentality and expressiveness scales of the Personality Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ); an eating disorders inventory (EDI) that included subscales for constructs including body dissatisfaction, bulimia, drive for thinness, and others; and a measure of caring and overprotectiveness in parental relationships. American and British students did not differ on the CSES, and neither did persons of different racial/ethnic background (European, African, or Asian). However, females had lower condom self-efficacy than males, t(269) = 3.7, p < <.001. Correlational analyses showed that for males, condom self-efficacy was associated with higher expressiveness scores on the PAQ and with less body dissatisfaction, drive for thinness, distrust of others, fearfulness, ineffectiveness, and bulimia-related behaviors, from the EDI. For females, condom self-efficacy was associated with higher scores on the HBI (more positive health-related behaviors in general), higher masculinity on the PAQ, and with the same relationships as males on all EDI scales. The parental relationship measures were not related to condom self-efficacy for either group. Conclusions. Condom self-efficacy is consistently associated with some psychological or personality constructs for both men and women. Both sexes have higher condom self-efficacy when they are less dissatisfied with their body image; have less desire for thinness; have fewer characteristics of bulimia; are less distrustful of others; less fearful; and feel more effective in general. However, both sexes also showed relationships that the other did not; condom efficacy was associated with greater expressiveness for males and with greater instrumentality for females, while pursuit of health-related behaviors in general was related for females but not males. Prevention researchers may benefit from considering the similarities and differences between males and in females in the predictors of condom self-efficacy.
Key words: condoms, self-efficacy, sex differences