Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2005

Publication Title

AIDS Prevention and Education

Volume

17

Issue

3

Abstract

This study examined the utility of cognitive and behavioral constructs (AIDS in-formation, motivation, and behavioral skills) in explaining sexual risk taking among 172 12–20–year-old ethnically diverse urban youths in outpatient psy-chiatric care. Structural equation modeling revealed only moderate support for the model, explaining low to moderate levels of variance in global sexual risk taking. The amount of explained variance improved when age was included as a predictor in the model. Findings shed light on the contribution of AIDS informa-tion, motivation, and behavioral skills to risky sexual behavior among teens re-ceiving outpatient psychiatric care. Results suggest that cognitive and behavioral factors alone may not explain sexual risk taking among teens whose cognitive and emotional deficits (e.g., impaired judgment, poor reality testing, affect dysregulation) interfere with HIV preventive behavior. The most powerful ex-planatory model will likely include a combination of cognitive, behavioral, developmental, social (e.g., family), and personal (e.g., psychopathology) risk mechanisms.

Identifier

16006207

Comments

Author Posting. © 2005 The Guilford Press. This article is posted here by permission of The Guilford Press for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in AIDS Prevention and Education, Volume 17, Issue 3, 2005. http://dx.doi.org/10.1521/aeap.17.4.200.66532

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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