WOMENS BARRIERS TO SAFER SEX

We examined women's barriers to safer sex and the development of a 14- item, multi-dimensional, barriers to safer sex scale. In Study 1, mode l testing and scale development was conducted on a population of 503 A frican and European American, inner-city, pregnant, single women. We f ound four factors that closely parallel theoretical barriers that are cited in the literature: a) partner and self objections, b) the apprai sal that one is not at risk, c) embarrassment, and d) giving up pleasu re. In Study 2, convergent and divergent validity data supported the c onstruct validity of the theoretical model and scale. In Study 3, the four subscales were found to be reliable among an additional sample of 72 single, college women. Subscale means for the community and studen t samples differed significantly, indicating important population diff erences. More modest differences were found between African American a nd European American women.