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Health protective sexual communication among HIV testing seekers

Vlatka Matković Puljić ; Referentni centar za dijagnostiku i liječenje zaraze HIV-om, Klinika za infektivne bolesti "Dr. Fran Mihaljević", Zagreb, Hrvatska
Josip Begovac orcid.org/0000-0003-2641-4327 ; Referentni centar za dijagnostiku i liječenje zaraze HIV-om, Klinika za infektivne bolesti "Dr. Fran Mihaljević", MF Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Zagreb, Hrvatska

Sažetak

Communicating with a sex partner about safer sex topics is an important protective health behavior. We assessed factors related to health protective sexual communication among 167 clients counseled at the voluntary counseling and testing site in Zagreb, Croatia. Health protective sexual communication was measured by a 10-item questionnaire on a scale of 1 to 4, with lower scores indicating better sexual communication. The median age of participants was 26 (IQR 22.5-31) years, 86.8% lived in urban areas, and 68.9% participants were men of whom one third reported having sex with men. Better communication was associated with more sexual partners in the past 6 months, condom use during the last sexual intercourse with casual partner. Also, more frequent condom use during the last sexual intercourse under the influence of alcohol was associated with better communication. Communication about specific sexual health topics (e.g. insisting on condom use) has more health protective effect than communication about other topics (e.g. sexual history). These results suggest that sexual health communication plays an important role in the health protective behavior and that health preventive interventions should include the aspect of development of sexual health protective communication skills.

Ključne riječi

Health protective sexual communication; sexual behavior; HIV testing

Hrčak ID:

133441

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/133441

Datum izdavanja:

31.12.2013.

Podaci na drugim jezicima: hrvatski

Posjeta: 1.701 *