Sexual scripts and AIDS prevention: Variations in adherence to safer‐sex guidelines by heterosexual adolescents

Abstract

The central problem addressed in this paper is whether and how unmarried late adolescents are incorporating Safer‐Sex Guidelines into their sexual practices. A two‐stage stratified sample of 1,000 French and English students attending seven Montreal colleges was surveyed in the fall of 1988. LISREL analysis was used to test an expanded version of Beck's Health Belief Model predicting compliance with Safer‐Sex Guidelines. Findings indicate that history of prior sexual conduct and sexual scripts together with use of oral contraceptives are the predominant influences on condom use and perception of susceptibility to HIV infection. Young adults are scripting condoms as contraceptives and relying on their believed ability to avoid coitus with infected partners as their major preventive mechanism.