Sex-Related Alcohol Expectancies Predict Sexual Risk Behavior Among Severely and Persistently Mentally Ill Adults

• Published in: Psychology of addictive behaviors 2002-03, Vol.16 (1), p.64-67
• Main Authors: Weinhardt, Lance S, Otto-Salaj, Laura L, Brondino, Michael J, Norberg, Melissa M, Kalichman, Seth C
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Addictive behaviors; Adult; Adult and adolescent clinical studies; Alcohol related expectations; Alcohol Use; Alcoholic Intoxication - psychology; Alcoholism; Biological and medical sciences; Chronic Disease; Chronic Mental Illness; Expectations; Female; HIV Infections - prevention & control; Human; Human viral diseases; Humans; Infectious diseases; Logistic Models; Male; Medical sciences; Mental Disorders - psychology; Mentally ill people; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Risk behaviour; Risk Factors; Safe Sex; Sexual Intercourse (Human); Sexual practices; Sexual Risk Taking; United States; Viral diseases; Viral diseases of the lymphoid tissue and the blood. Aids
• ISSN: 0893-164X; 1939-1501
• DOI: 10.1037/0893-164X.16.1.64

Three hundred three adults (57% male, average age 42 years) with severe and persistent mental illness receiving treatment at community mental health clinics completed a survey, which included B. C. Leigh's (1990) sex-related alcohol expectancy scale and measures of alcohol use and sexual risk behavior. Hierarchical logistic regression analyses, controlling for drinking behavior, revealed that participants with stronger expectancies that drinking would lead to enhanced sexual experience were more likely to have drank prior to intercourse and that, among participants who drank prior to intercourse, those with stronger expectancies that alcohol would lead to riskier sexual behavior were more likely to have engaged in sexual risk behavior. Implications for preventing HIV infection among people with severe mental illness are discussed.