Attitudes About HIV/AIDS Among Hispanic College Students

Abstract

The Attitudes About HIV/AIDS for Hispanic College Students scale is a 26-item psychological instrument designed to assess the attitudes of Hispanic college students regarding Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). The scale measures three primary domains: attitudes toward people infected with HIV/AIDS, beliefs about sexual behaviors and safer sexual practices, and perspectives on the discussion and learning of AIDS-related topics. Responses are captured using a 5-point Likert scale, and the instrument was adapted to ensure cultural relevance for the target population.

Keywords

HIV/AIDS, attitudes, Hispanic college students, college health, sexual behavior, psychometric scale, cultural adaptation, Cronbach’s alpha, public health

Authors

Raffy R. Luquis, Patricia Bartholow Koch

Purpose

The primary purpose of this instrument is to provide a culturally sensitive and reliable measure of attitudes toward HIV/AIDS specifically tailored for the Hispanic college student population. Recognizing that cultural factors heavily influence health beliefs and attitudes toward sensitive topics like sexuality and disease, the developers adapted existing, established measures to ensure relevance and accuracy for this demographic.

The scale was developed by adapting items from the attitudes survey utilized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (Dawson, 1990) and the Nurses’ Attitudes about AIDS Scale (Preston, Young, Koch, & Forti, 1995). This adaptation process focused on creating an instrument capable of measuring attitudes crucial for informing culturally competent public health interventions and educational programs aimed at reducing risk behaviors and stigma within this community.

Construct

The scale operationalizes the construct of attitudes toward HIV/AIDS, which is understood not as a single belief, but as a composite of cognitive, affective, and behavioral tendencies related to the disease. The 26 items comprehensively cover several sub-domains of this construct, including:

• Attitudes toward Infected Individuals: Measuring stigma, willingness to interact, and beliefs regarding the civil rights of people living with HIV/AIDS (e.g., job and housing discrimination).

• Sexual Behavior and Safer Practices: Assessing beliefs about premarital sex, promiscuity, and the use of protective measures like condoms.

• Education and Discussion: Gauging comfort levels in discussing HIV/AIDS with peers, parents, or in academic settings, and perceptions of the adequacy of current educational efforts.

The scoring methodology, where higher mean scores (up to 5) represent more positive attitudes, allows researchers to quantify the overall level of acceptance, knowledge, and proactive health beliefs held by the respondents.

Validity

Significant steps were taken during the development process to ensure both content and cultural validity, particularly given the focus on the Hispanic population. The initial phase involved conducting focus groups with Hispanic college students. This qualitative analysis was essential for identifying and incorporating culturally relevant issues and framing language appropriate for the demographic.

Following the incorporation of culturally specific content, the revised instrument underwent pilot-testing with both Hispanic and non-Hispanic students. This testing provided critical feedback concerning the instrument’s content clarity, structural format, and vocabulary. Crucially, to ensure the utility of the scale across language preferences, the English version was professionally translated into Spanish. This translation was then subjected to a rigorous back-translation process by two separate bilingual professionals, confirming the semantic and conceptual equivalence between the English and Spanish versions and bolstering the scale’s cross-cultural validity.

Reliability

The internal consistency of the scale was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha. A reliability analysis, conducted as part of a master’s thesis study (Luquis, 1991) involving both Hispanic and non-Hispanic college students, demonstrated a strong level of internal consistency for the entire 26-item scale.

The analysis yielded a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of .85. This value indicates high reliability, suggesting that the items within the scale measure the underlying construct of attitudes toward HIV/AIDS consistently and cohesively across the sampled population.

Factor Analysis

While the source material confirms the internal consistency of the overall scale (alpha = .85), specific information regarding the results of a formal factor analysis (e.g., Exploratory Factor Analysis or Confirmatory Factor Analysis) detailing underlying latent factors or subscales is not provided in this entry. Given the multidimensional nature of the measured construct (attitudes toward infected people, sexual practices, and education), it is likely that the 26 items load onto several distinct factors, but these factor structure results require external verification.

Instrument

Test Type:

Self-report attitudinal scale (Psychometric)

Format:

26 items presented as statements, requiring response on a 5-point Likert scale.

Language Available:

English and Spanish

Population Group:

Hispanic college students

Age Group:

College age (typically 18–25 years old)

Population Details:

The scale was developed and validated initially using Hispanic and non-Hispanic college students enrolled at The Pennsylvania State University.

Test Methodology:

Participants rate their level of agreement or disagreement with each statement using a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (Strongly Agree) to 5 (Strongly Disagree). A mean score is calculated across all items. Items 1, 5, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 20, 21, 23, 25, and 26 are reverse scored to ensure that a higher overall mean score (closer to 5) consistently reflects more positive attitudes toward HIV/AIDS, safer practices, and non-discriminatory beliefs.

Keywords

Public health intervention, stigma, sexual health, health education, university population, cross-cultural research, attitude measurement, behavioral science, CDC

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier:

Not provided in source material.

Affiliation Email addresses:

[email protected] (Raffy R. Luquis)

Correspondence Address:

Raffy R. Luquis, School of Behavioral Sciences and Education, W331 Olmsted, Penn State Harrisburg, 777 West Harrisburg Pike, Middletown PA 17057

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Test Year:

The scale was utilized and documented in the master’s thesis by Luquis (1991), following adaptation from instruments published in 1990 and 1995. The primary development phase occurred around 1991.

Permissions and Fees:

Information regarding current usage permissions or associated fees for utilizing the Attitudes About HIV/AIDS for Hispanic College Students scale is not available in the source material. Researchers should contact the corresponding author, Raffy R. Luquis, for permission and licensing details.

Reference’s

Dawson, D. A. (1990). AIDS knowledge and attitudes for July–September. Provisional data from the National Health Interview Survey. (Advance Data from Vital and Health Statistics No. 183.) Hyattsville, MD: Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Services, Centers for Disease Control, National Center for Health Statistics.

Luquis, R. (1991). Knowledge of and attitudes about HIV/AIDS among Hispanic college students at the Pennsylvania State University. Unpublished master’s thesis, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.

Preston, D. B., Young, E. W., Koch, P. B., & Forti, E. M. (1995). The Nurses’ Attitudes about AIDS Scale (NAAS): Development and psychometric analysis. AIDS Education and Prevention, 7, 443–454.

Items of the Attitudes About HIV/AIDS for Hispanic College Students

Attitudes About HIV/AIDS

The following statements reflect attitudes about HIV and AIDS. Circle the number that best describes your feeling about each statement.

Scale: 1 = Strongly Agree, 2 = Agree, 3 = Uncertain, 4 = Disagree, 5 = Strongly Disagree

1. I believe I have enough information about HIV/AIDS to protect myself.

2. I believe women should not have sexual intercourse before marriage.

3. Activities that spread HIV/AIDS, such as some forms of sexual behaviors, should be illegal.

4. I feel uncomfortable when coming in contact with gay men because of the risk that they may have HIV/AIDS.

5. Civil rights laws should be enacted/enforced to protect people with HIV/AIDS from job and housing discrimination.

6. Male homosexuality is obscene and vulgar.

7. I believe men should not have sexual intercourse before marriage.

8. HIV test results should be confidential to avoid discrimination against people with positive results.

9. I feel that more time should be spent teaching students about HIV/AIDS in my college courses.

10. People should not blame the homosexual community for the spread of HIV/AIDS in the U.S.

11. AIDS is a punishment for immoral behavior.

12. I feel secure that I have reduced all risk of personally contracting HIV.

13. It would not bother me to attend class with a person with HIV/AIDS.

14. Anyone who has had more than one sexual partner is promiscuous.

15. I could comfortably discuss HIV/AIDS with a friend.

16. I would not avoid a friend if she/he had HIV/AIDS.

17. If I discovered that my roommate had HIV/AIDS, I would move out.

18. I do not believe in using condoms.

19. I could not discuss HIV/AIDS with my parents.

20. I would date a person with HIV/AIDS.

21. I would feel comfortable discussing HIV/AIDS in a course.

22. I would not engage in sexual intercourse before marriage.

23. I would feel comfortable asking a new partner about his/her sexual history.

24. I would use HIV/AIDS as an excuse to avoid any sexual relationships.

25. I would limit myself to one sexual partner.

26. I would use a condom every time I had sex.

Actitudes Acerca del VIH/SIDA

Las siguientes oraciones reflejan actitudes acerca del VIH/SIDA. Circule el numero qua mejor describe tu reacción a cada oración. Escala: 1 = Muy de Acuerdo, 2 = De Acuerdo, 3 = Inseguro, 4 = En Desacuerdo, 5 = Muy en Desacuerdo

1. Creo tener suficiente información acerca del VIH/SIDA para protegerme.

2. Creo que las mujeres no deberían tener relaciones sexuales antes de casarse.

3. Actividades que trasmiten el VIH/SIDA, tal como algunos comportamientos sexuales, deberían ser ilegales.

4. Me siento incomodo cuando estoy en contacto con hombres homosexuales por miedo de que puedan tener VIH/SIDA.

5. Leyes de Derechos Civiles deben ser promulgadas e impuestas para proteger personas con HIV/SIDA de discriminación de trabajo y casa.

6. La homosexualidad masculina es vulgar y obscena.

7. Creo que los hombres no deberían tener relaciones sexuales antes de casarse.

8. Resultados de la prueba de sangre para el VIH deben ser confidenciales para prevenir discriminación en contra de personas con resultados positivos.

9. Siento que deberían dedicar más tiempo a la enseñanza sobre el VIH/SIDA en mis clases de universidad.

10. La comunidad homosexual no debe ser culpada por la transmisión del VIH/SIDA en los Estados Unidos.

11. El SIDA es un castigo por comportamiento inmoral.

12. Creo haber reducido todos los riesgos que me exponen al VIH/SIDA.

13. No me importaría ir a clases con una persona con VIH/SIDA.

14. Cualquier persona que haya tenido más de un compañero sexual es promiscuo.

15. Podría hablar abiertamente del VIH/SIDA con un amigo.

16. Yo no me alejaría de un amigo si él/ella tuviera VIH/SIDA.

17. Si yo descubriera que mi compañero de apartamento tuviera el VIH/SIDA, yo me mudaría a otro lugar.

18. Yo no estoy de acuerdo con en el uso de condones.

19. Yo no podría hablar el tema del VIH/SIDA con mis padres.

20. Yo saldría con una persona que tuviera VIH/SIDA.

21. Me sentiría cómodo hablando del tema del VIH/SIDA en clase.

22. Me abstendría de relaciones sexuales antes del matrimonio.

23. Me sentiría cómodo al preguntar a mi compañero acerca de su vida sexual pasada.

24. Usaría el VIH/SIDA como excusa para no tener relaciones sexuales.

25. Me limitaría a un solo compañero en mi relación sexual.

26. Siempre que tenga sexo usare un condón.