HIV Prevention for Youths in Foster Care: Understanding Future Orientation and Intended Risk Behaviors

Abstract

Youths in foster care face challenges, including making healthy behavioral choices. Empirical data from a sample show how intentions to engage in HIV-risk behaviors vary among youths in foster care. Youths who hold safer attitudes about prevention and those who have fewer peers with behavioral problems more often intend safer behavior. Among young women, a stronger orientation toward the future is associated with fewer behavioral intentions that involve HIV risk. Youths in foster care who are in higher grades, express greater self-efficacy, or have fewer problems with mental health or substance abuse express a stronger and more hopeful orientation toward the future. These research results support the application of integrated health behavior theory among youths in foster care, showing that preventive attitudes, well-behaved peers, and a stronger orientation toward the future are associated with fewer behavioral intentions that precede HIV risk.

KEYWORDS:

• adolescents
• foster care
• HIV prevention
• youth

This work was funded by The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01 HD 35445) and by the Annie E. Casey Foundation with grants to the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

Notes

Note. Additional information on many of these variables can be found in work by Auslander et al. (1998, 2002) and McMillen et al. (2003).

Note. Asterisk (∗) indicates significant association (p < .05).

Note. Statistics for each multivariate model include regression coefficients (beta parameters), the standard errors (s _e ) for each estimated coefficient, and p-values in parentheses. An asterisk (∗) indicates significant (p < .05) multivariate associations.