Theories of reasoned action and planned behavior as models of condom use: a meta-analysis

Conducting meta-analyses of HIV prevention literatures from a theory-testing perspective

Using illustrations from HIV prevention research, the current article advocates approaching meta-analysis as a theory-testing scientific method rather than as merely a set of rules for quantitative analysis. Like other scientific methods, meta-analysis has central concerns with internal, external, and construct validity. The focus of a meta-analysis should only rarely be merely describing the effects of health promotion, but rather should be on understanding and explaining phenomena and the processes underlying them. The methodological decisions meta-analysts make in conducting reviews should be guided by a consideration of the underlying goals of the review (e.g., simply effect size estimation or, preferably theory testing). From the advocated perspective that a health behavior meta-analyst should test theory, the authors present a number of issues to be considered during the conduct of meta-analyses.

Heart Versus Reason in Condom Use: Implicit Versus Explicit Attitudinal Predictors of Sexual Behavior

Abstract. We test the hypothesis that explicit and implicit measures of attitudes would differentially predict deliberate versus spontaneous behavior in the domain of condom use. Students completed explicit attitudinal and thought-listing measures about using condoms and implicit measures using attitude priming and Implicit Association Test (IAT) procedures. An attitude IAT measured the association between condom images and affective images; a self-identity IAT measured association of condoms with the self. We predicted and found that condom use with main partners was predicted by explicit measures but not implicit measures; the opposite was true for condom use with casual partners. Although the attitude priming measure was not positively correlated with casual condom use, the IATs were. The patterns of relations, however, were unexpectedly complex, due to a strong decrease in IAT effects over time, and different IATs assessing unique attitudinal dimensions.

Canadian menopause study-I: Understanding women's intentions to utilise hormone replacement therapy

OBJECTIVES

This research examines women's intentions to use or to continue to use HRT, as a function of perceived advantages and disadvantages of HRT and perceived social support for utilising HRT.

METHODS

A cross-national sample of 205 pre-, peri-, and postmenopausal women convened in 33 'Women's Health Discussion Groups' in small, mid-sized, and large cities across the regions of Canada. Participants completed close-ended questionnaires assessing perceptions of advantages, disadvantages, and social support for HRT, and intentions to utilise or to continue to utilise HRT in the future.

RESULTS

Women who intended to utilise or to continue to utilise HRT, compared with women who did not, perceived significantly more advantages of HRT and significantly more social support for utilising HRT, and did not, in general, differ in their perceptions of the negative side effects of HRT. Regression analysis indicated that perceived advantages of HRT and perceived social support for using HRT, but not perceived negative side effects of HRT, were significantly associated with intentions to utilise or to continue to utilise therapy and explained 46% of the variance in these intentions.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings suggest that the importance of perceived health benefits of HRT and perceived social support for HRT may be substantially underestimated, and that the importance of perceived negative side effects of HRT may be substantially overestimated, in understanding women's HRT decision making and in counselling women about initiation or maintenance of therapy.