Premium
The Accuracy of Self‐Reports of Condom Use and Sexual Behavior
Author(s) -
Jaccard James,
McDonald Robert,
Wan Choi K.,
Dittus Patricia J.,
Quinlan Shan
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2002.tb00263.x
Subject(s) - condom , psychology , sexual behavior , demography , metropolitan area , social psychology , self report study , developmental psychology , clinical psychology , medicine , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , family medicine , syphilis , pathology , sociology
In a study of the accuracy of self‐reports of sexual behavior and condom use, 285 single, young adults in a large metropolitan area were interviewed once a week for 52 weeks, reporting on their sexual behavior each week. At 1‐, 3‐, 6‐, and 12‐month intervals, the individuals also provided self‐reports of the number of times they had engaged in sex and the number of times they had used condoms since they began participating in the study. These self‐reports were compared with aggregates of the weekly data, which served as a comparison standard for accuracy evaluation. The results indicate a fairly high level of accuracy in self‐reports, but with 2% to 5% outliers who are highly inaccurate. The results tend to favor the assessment of sexual behavior over moderate time durations (3 or 6 months) rather than short or long durations (1 month or 12 months) when trying to maximize self‐report accuracy. Accuracy was attenuated for individuals who tended to engage in sex frequently, especially at the 12‐month time durations.