DO HOMOSEXUAL AND BISEXUAL MEN WHO PLACE OTHERS AT POTENTIAL RISK FORHIV HAVE UNIQUE PSYCHOSOCIAL PROFILES

Prevention of HIV infection requires individuals to attend not only to their own risk but also to whether they place others at risk. To desi gn appropriate interventions, however, it is important to determine wh ether HIV positive and HIV negative individuals who place others at po tential risk differ in their psychosocial and psychological profiles. Such differences would suggest the need for specially tailored interve ntions for each group. We studied 525 homosexual and bisexual men (156 HIV positive, 369 HIV negative) from the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Stud y (Pittsburgh site) to (a) identify correlates of risky behavior and ( b) determine whether these correlates differed by HIV serostatus. Alth ough HIV positive men were somewhat less likely than HIV negative men to have engaged in high-risk sexual activity in the past 6 months (e.g ., unprotected insertive anal intercourse), the correlates of such act ivity were identical across groups. Regardless of serostatus, men plac ing others at potential risk were younger, less educated, had less psy chological distress and greater feelings of mastery, employed fewer ac tive behavioral coping strategies, and were heavier users of alcohol a nd amyl nitrate (poppers).