EVALUATION OF THE VALIDITY OF THE CONDOM USE SELF-EFFICACY SCALE (CUSES) IN YOUNG MEN USING 2 BEHAVIORAL SIMULATIONS

Assessment of behavioral skills remains critical to the evaluation of HIV prevention interventions; however, investigators often rely upon p articipant reports of self-efficacy to estimate such skills. We evalua ted the relationship between self-efficacy beliefs for condom use and behavioral performance. Forty-three men completed the Condom Use Self- Efficacy Scale (CUSES) and participated in 2 behavioral assessments. R egression analyses indicated that the CUSES subscales relevant to nego tiation of condom use did not account for a significant amount of vari ability in interpersonal skills; similarly, the CUSES subscale relevan t to technical condom use skill did not account for variability in the condom application scores. We caution investigators against the assum ption that higher self-efficacy reflects behavioral competence for HIV -risk reduction.