Comparison of Beliefs About AIDS Among Urban, Suburban, Incarcerated, and Gay Adolescents

Beliefs about AIDS were surveyed among opportunistic samples of 1572 adolescents to compare four subgroups of youth: urban public high school students; suburban private school students; youth incarcerated in a detention facility; and a group who were contacted through a gay youth organization. The questionnaire items formed four important theoretical constructs derived by an expert group extensively involved with AIDS education. The constructs were: 1) agreement with health guidelines; 2) perceived personal threat of AIDS; 3) a sense of personal efficacy to prevent infection and the spread of AIDS; and 4) perceived norms of safe sex behaviors. In all groups, females were more likely to endorse higher norms for safe sex practices than males. Older adolescents of both sexes tended to perceive less personal threat of AIDS, and also rated lower norms for safe sex practices than did the younger adolescents. The incarcerated group of adolescents demonstrated significantly poorer knowledge and lower agreement with health guidelines (p = 0.0000), lower perceived personal threat of AIDS (p = 0.005), lower personal efficacy to prevent AIDS (p = 0.003), and lower perceived norms of safe sex practices (p = 0.0000), compared to the other groups. The education implications of these findings are discussed, including the necessity of program elements directed toward subculture peer norms and support, a realistic sense of vulnerability about AIDS, and self-confidence building as well as specific skills to prevent the infection and spread of the human immunodeficiency virus among adolescents.