Adolescent Women’s Sexual Self-Efficacy: Associations with Personal and Perceived Partner Beliefs That Condoms Interfere with Pleasure

Abstract

Sexual self-efficacy, an individual’s confidence in the domain of sexual health behaviors, was studied among an ethnically diverse sample of 128 sexually active adolescent women between the ages of 14 and 18 years. A hypothesized interaction between women’s belief that condoms interfere with sexual pleasure and her perception of a partner’s belief that condoms interfere with sexual pleasure was not supported. Both adolescent women’s belief that condoms interfere with pleasure and their perception that their partner believed condoms interfere with pleasure were separately associated with lower self-efficacy to refuse sex without condoms and use condoms. Both a partner’s and one’s own sexual pleasure may be important determinants of adolescent women’s confidence to engage in health protective sexual behaviors. Adolescents’ self-efficacy to experience pleasure when using condoms should be enhanced.

Keywords:

• Adolescent
• women
• sexual self-efficacy
• condoms
• pleasure

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support and contributions of our clinic and school partners; The Annex Teen Clinic; our Program Officer Willo Pequegnat, PhD; videographer Paul Bernhardt, BA; Fuzzy Duck Design and Jared Law, Lead Web Designer & Developer; and the following staff and students within the Division of Epidemiology & Community Health at the time of study implementation: Amy J. Kodet, MPP; Vienna D. Rothberg, MSW, MPH; Meredith Schonfeld Hicks, MPH; Magdalena Osorio, BA; Ramatoulie Jallow, MPH; Cherese Alcorn, BS; Lee McKenna, BS; Jeffrey Johnson, BS; Douglas Lier, BS; and Gudrun Kilian, BA.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the last author, [SSB], upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, Division of AIDS [R34 MH086320 to S.S.B.] and a University of Minnesota Grant-in-Aid of Research, Artistry, and Scholarship to S.S.B.