Bringing up condom use and using condoms with new sexual partners: Intentional or habitual?

A prospective study of 94 Dutch adults who have casual sexual partners exam ined whether two important aspects of safe sex. namely bringing up condom u se (BCU) and actual condom use (ACU) are intentional or habitual. For each of these aspects, a model based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB: Aj zen, 1991) was pitted against a similar model that was extended with a path from past to later BCU and ACU, respectively. The results suggest that bri nging up the issue of condom use was equally predicted by intentions and pa t BCU. However, among people with casual partners. using condoms - and more importantly not using condoms - was especially predicted by past ACU, Sugg esting a strong habitual component. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for safe sex education and the use of theories in safe sex promotion campaigns.