Longitudinal Predictors of Behavioral Intentions and HIV Service Use Among Men Who Have Sex with Men.

HIV prevention interventions are generally effective at reducing sexual risk. Although these interventions have been widely disseminated in the USA, their success depends largely on whether subpopulations who have been prioritized for risk reduction are willing to participate. Understanding the factors predicting service utilization is critical to maximizing public health benefit.

HIV/AIDS-related institutional mistrust among multiethnic men who have sex with men: effects on HIV testing and risk behaviors.

Objective: To investigate relationships between institutional mistrust (systematic discrimination, organizational suspicion, and conspiracy beliefs), HIV risk behaviors, and HIV testing in a multiethnic sample of men who have sex with men (MSM), and to test whether perceived susceptibility to HIV mediates these relationships for White and ethnic minority MSM.

Method: Participants were 394 MSM residing in Central Arizona (M age = 37 years). Three dimensions of mistrust were examined, including organizational suspicion, conspiracy beliefs, and systematic discrimination.

The Cognitive Escape Scale: measuring HIV-related thought avoidance.

Cognitive escape provides a model for examining the cognitive processes involved in escaping from thoughts of HIV/AIDS in a population of men who have sex with men (MSM). This investigation presents psychometric information and validation data on the Cognitive Escape Scale (CES), a measure of HIV-related cognitive avoidance. This study also examined the associations between the CES and self-report measures of theoretically related constructs, including HIV-related worry, sensation-seeking, depressive symptoms, perceived stress, and risky sexual behaviors.

The effects of HIV-related thought suppression on risk behavior: cognitive escape in men who have sex with men.

This study investigated the relationship between suppressing thoughts about HIV risk and several outcomes related to HIV risk, including sexual risk behavior and HIV prevention service use, in men who have sex with men (MSM). Synthesizing the ironic processing theory (D. M.

The impact of internalized homophobia on HIV preventive interventions.

A growing body of research implicates internalized homophobia--the internalization of society's antihomosexual sentiments by gay and lesbian people--as a factor contributing to HIV-related sexual risk behavior in gay and bisexual men. Although accumulating evidence links internalized homophobia and sexual risk behavior, no study has explored the impact of internalized homophobia on efforts to prevent these behaviors. This paper examines the effect of internalized homophobia on gay and bisexual men's awareness of participation in, and perceptions of programs offered by a community-based HIV prevention organization.