HOW COULD I FORGET - INACCURATE MEMORIES OF SEXUALLY INTIMATE MOMENTS

This study was based on data collected from 87 men during and immediat ely following participation in a counseling program aimed at assisting them to reduce sexual behaviors associated with high HN risk. All the melt reported having engaged in same-gender anal or oral sex without condoms during the year prior to enrollment. Three-month retrospective reports of sexual behavior, solicited just after participation, were compared with reports collected weekly during the same three-month per iod. Accuracy of recall over an ensemble of 10 behavior items was quit e low with amount of error positively associated with behavior frequen cy. In general, exaggerated reports were associated with low-frequency behavior and underreports with high-frequency behavior. Because of ob served differences in the average frequency of occurrence of the vario us specific types of sexual behavior, adjustment for event frequency w as required to provide adequate analysis of between-behavior differenc es in memory error. Estimated functional relationships between behavio r frequency and average memory error illustrated that for sexual activ ity occurring between 1 and 20 times in the three-month period, there was a significant association, between the HIV-risk level of a behavio r and the average extent to which the behavior was forgotten (i.e., un derreported). After event-frequency adjustment, anal activity without condoms-the behavior believed to entail the highest level of risk for HN transmission, and the behavior about which the counseling program p rovided the least ambiguous cues regarding risk-was associated with th e greatest underreporting error, and the ensemble of unprotected behav iors (i.e., those unaccompanied by condom usage) involved significantl y greater underreporting than. did protected behaviors. Error rates ov er the ensemble of behaviors were strikingly Low for zero-frequency ev ents, suggesting the utility of dichotomous ever/never measures in res earch evaluating activity levels and behavior change. Other analysis t echniques for reducing potential recall bias, allowing finer evaluatio ns of behavior frequency and change, were also discussed.