Measuring correlates of HIV risk avoidance in sub-Saharan preadolescents

Background: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome poses a major health threat to the youth of Sub-Saharan Africa. While this region has only 10% of the world's population, it accounts for more that 50 % of the world's infected people. At present little is known about the use of sexual risk avoidance behaviors in this region. In a preliminary evaluation of instruments, which is necessary to assure adequate measurement of interventions, the Sexual Abstinence Behavior Skills Scale (SABSS) and the Intention to Postpone Sexual Activity Scale (IPSAS) were revised with the assistance of Cameroonian experts and found to demonstrate adequate psychometric properties in a sample of 60 Cameroonian female preadolescents. These measures, now called SABSS-Cam and IPSAS-Cam demonstrated good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha; IPSAS-Cam=.98 and SABSS-Cam=.67). Exploratory factor analysis with a varimax rotation found that the items of the IPSAS-Cam fell on 1factor while the items of the SABSS-Cam loaded on 2factors.This study represents a second step in the assessing the reliability and validity of the two instruments. Method: The IPSAS-Cam and the SABSS-Cam along with the Sexual Abstinence Behavior Scale (SABS), and the Perceived Negative Consequences of Early Sex Scale (PNCESS) were distributed to 400 preadolescent male and female students from randomly selected schools in Cameroon. Findings: Cronbach alpha and confirmatory factor analysis found the psychometric properties of the four measures to be acceptable, and correlations found the instruments also demonstrated convergence validity. Conclusion: Based on the findings, the instruments can be used to assess the effectiveness of a large community intervention study among preadolescents in Sub-Saharan Africa.