Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #109962

James L. Norr, PhD¹, Kathleen S. Crittenden, PhD¹, Chrissie P. N. Kaponda, PhD RN², and Clara Chipeta, BSc³. (1) Sociology Department, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1007 W. Harrison St. (M/C 312), Chicago, IL 60607, 312-996-5373, norr@uic.edu, (2) Kamuzu College of Nursing, U. of Malawi, Private Bag # 1, Lilongwe, Malawi, (3) College of Nursing, University of Illinois at Chicago, 845 South Damen Ave. (M/C 802), Chicago, IL 60612

Our community-collaborative HIV prevention intervention program for rural Malawi first targets health workers, who then mobilize adults in the community, who then participate in involving adolescents in the community. The evidence base for developing intervention content for each group comes from focus groups and interview surveys with samples from each of these subgroups. Health workers are most favorable toward condoms, followed by adolescents, and then by community adults. All three groups are most likely to endorse the effectiveness of condoms for prevention of HIV. Next in approval are items concerning the effect of condoms on the sexual experience. However, all three groups stigmatize condom use because they associate condoms with promiscuity, unfaithfulness, and distrust of a partner. Condom use is very low in all three groups, particularly among community adults. Condom attitudes are positively associated with condom use in each group. Among adults, men are more favorable toward condom use, as are those with multiple partners, and support decreases with age but increases with education. Among youth, approval increases with age, but attitudes toward condom use are unrelated to gender, current school enrollment, or number of sexual partners. These findings are incorporated into the design of the intervention. We added discussions of the rationale, effectiveness, and correct use of condoms and scenarios posed dilemmas in which condoms could be used to benefit the family and community. These efforts develop specific condom skills and self-efficacy both in discussion of sex and condoms with partners and in condom use.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand patterns of sexual activity, condom use, and condom attitudes among health workers and community adults and adolescents in rural Malawi.
• Learn the correlates of attitudes favorable to condom use in these three groups.
• Learn how these results affect intervention content.

Keywords: Condom Use, HIV Interventions

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation