Trying to practice safer sex: Development of the sexual risks scale

Psychometric techniques were used for the development of a theoretically-based measure of constructs related to safer sexual activity. A pilot study and two studies using college student samples were conducted to derive, retain, and validate scale items. The final 38-item scale is comprised of subscales measuring attitudes about safer sex, normative beliefs, intention to try to practice safer sex, expectations about the feasibility of safer sexual activity, perceived susceptibility to HIV/AIDS, and substance use. Each subscale contributed to the prediction of critical theoretical constructs, accounting for about 40% of the variance in. intention to try to practice safer sex and for about one fifth of the variance in self-reported HIV risk behavior. The final scale, as well as each subscale, was characterized by internal reliability and both construct and predictive validity.