Control, health perceptions, and information seeking as correlates of risky behavior in the context of AIDS

Why do individuals who are at high risk for AIDS engage in behaviors that increase their probability for getting the disease? Conversely, what is it about an individual that will make him or her engage in behaviors that will reduce their risk for AIDS?; This dissertation attempted to answer these questions by examining the relationships among an individual's perceived ability to control health events and outcomes (health locus of control or HLC), representations of health threat, specifically perceived seriousness of and vulnerability to AIDS, the communication behaviors of premeditated information seeking, unplanned message discovery and information sharing, knowledge of AIDS, and the risky sexual behaviors of unprotected receptive anal and oral sex.; The population of interest was Caucasian MSMs (men having sex with men), a high risk group identified by the Centers for Disease Control as accounting for nearly half of the AIDS cases in the United States. Data were gathered from 150 MSMs in the Riverside and San Bernardino counties of California via a structured questionnaire administered by certified community outreach educators of the Inland AIDS Project. Data analysis revealed HLC to be related to premeditated information seeking, unplanned message discovery, information sharing, AIDS knowledge, and risk aversive sexual behaviors. Perceived seriousness was strongly but negatively related to premeditated information seeking and risky behavior but not as strongly related to unplanned message discovery, information sharing, and knowledge. Perceived susceptibility was correlated with premeditated information seeking, unplanned message discovery, information sharing, knowledge, and unprotected receptive anal and oral sex.; For public health educators who traditionally have sought to increase awareness of AIDS by identifying at-risk populations, symptoms, risky sexual practices, and precautions for minimizing risk, the data from this dissertation suggest that it may be productive to remind high-risk individuals through public education campaigns that they are masters of their own destinies, and that they alone can heighten or minimize the risk for AIDS through their own behaviors.