Profiles of HIV-related knowledge and self-regulation factors in at-risk pre-adolescents

ABSTRACT

Disrupted self-regulation can increase youths’ risk for substance use and HIV acquisition. Latent profile analysis (LPA) was used to explore profiles among 124 youth ages 11–13 who had impulse control disorders. LPA was based on self-regulation factors and three HIV/AIDS-specific domains: AIDS-related knowledge; perceived severity of AIDS; and worry about HIV. LPA identified four profiles: 1) low knowledge/low regulation; 2) low perceived severity/high regulation; 3) high knowledge/low regulation; and 4) moderate knowledge/moderate regulation. Youth with the highest HIV/AIDS knowledge showed the highest impulsivity, emotion dysregulation, and violence exposure. Youth may benefit from tailored prevention based on HIV-related knowledge/beliefs and self-regulation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical standards

The authors assert that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of the relevant national and institutional committees on human experimentation and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2013. Consent and assent were obtained from all study participants.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by NIDA R01DA039764 awarded to Dr. Hulvershorn. The funders had no role in study design, data collection, data analysis, decision to publish, or manuscript preparation.