Development and Validation of the Sexual Agreement Investment Scale

Abstract

Sexual agreements are ubiquitous among gay men. Lower levels of investment in these agreements may be associated with breaking them or engaging in risky sexual behavior. A scale was developed to measure agreement investment levels among gay men. Qualitative data from 78 gay men in committed relationships were analyzed to inform item development, followed by quantitative analyses of two larger samples (n = 380, n = 1,001) to assess construct, convergent, and discriminant validity. The Sexual Agreement Investment Scale (SAIS) is a psychometrically sound measure of the level of investment in sexual agreements among gay men in relationships. Men with higher agreement investment were less likely to break agreements and less likely to engage in unprotected anal intercourse with outside partners. The SAIS can be used to measure investment in sexual agreements and its impact on sexual behavior in a wide variety of settings, including research on relationships, sexuality, couples therapy and HIV prevention.

Acknowledgments

We thank the NIMH for providing financial support for this research. This study was supported by National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Grants R01 MH65141, R01 MH75598, and K08 MH072380. We also thank the research participants who gave so generously of their time to participate in the qualitative interviews and complete the quantitative surveys.

Notes

Note. The blank cells represent data that are not available for Study 1. UAI = unprotected anal intercourse.

^a The two types of open agreements were not demarcated. Also, two couples who gave discrepant reports (where one partner reported the agreement to be open, whereas the other reported that they were monogamous) are not shown in the table.

^b The question asked (“Tell me about a time when the sexual agreement you and your partner had about outside partners was broken.”) was broader than that in Studies 2 and 3.

^c These represent the number of couples, not individuals.

Note. For all the scales, higher scores represent higher levels of the characteristic under consideration. To achieve this, appropriate items within each scale were reverse-scored prior to computing the composite score. UCLA = University of California, Los Angeles; CES–D = Center for Epidemiologic Studies–Depression Scale.

^a Contains the following item in addition to the original 13 items: “Health care decisions.”

Note. Confidence intervals were computed using a robust variance estimator to account for the non-independence of individual respondents nested within couples.

Note. Correlations displayed are those of the latent sexual agreement investment factor with each scale listed in the table. Confidence intervals were computed using a robust variance estimator to account for the non-independence of individual respondents nested within couples. UCLA = University of California, Los Angeles; CES–D = Center for Epidemiologic Studies–Depression Scale.