CONDOM USE BY DUTCH MEN WITH COMMERCIAL HETEROSEXUAL CONTACTS - DETERMINANTS AND CONSIDERATIONS

We report responses from 559 clients of female prostitutes, with a vie w to determining to what extent previously identified factors play a p art in condom use, To increase the response rate to advertisements in daily and weekly newspapers, interviews were held by phone, This proce dure had the advantage of ensuring the anonymity many clients demanded . Of those clients having vaginal or anal contact (91%), 14% had not a lways used condoms in the previous year. Compared with consistent cond om users, these men were less highly educated, had twice as many comme rcial contacts, and had more contacts with ''steady'' prostitutes. The y were either more emotionally motivated to visit prostitutes than wer e consistent condom users or exhibited a stronger need for sexual vari ation, They showed a more compulsive attitude toward visiting prostitu tes, had a more negative attitude toward prostitution in general, eval uated condoms more negatively, had a higher personal efficacy to achie ve unsafe contacts, and had a higher general risk assessment, commensu rate with their behavior, Men with only safe contacts had either an in trinsic or an extrinsic motivation for condom use; Among extrinsically motivated men, their behavior change was more recent and had not yet taken root: They still envisioned unsafe commercial sex to be possible in the future, Education aimed at the small group of men practicing u nsafe contacts will not easily and directly lead to behavior change, B ut these educational activities may support prostitutes to persist in (consistent) condom use, regardless of clients' pressure to do otherwi se.