Predicting safe sex: Assessment of autoregressive and cross-lagged effects within the Theory of Planned Behavior.

Despite its popularity, few studies have assessed the temporal stability and cross-lagged effects of the Theory of Planned Behavior factors: Attitude, subjective norms and self-efficacy. For this study, 298 adolescent learners from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, filled out a Theory of Planned Behavior questionnaire on teenage pregnancy at baseline and after 6 months. Structural equation modeling showed that there were considerable cross-lagged effects between attitude and subjective norms.