Adolescents take that first step in halting the growing rates of HIV, AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases

Young adults who have used a condom at least once have significantly more favorable attitudes toward them than those who have never used them, providing evidence that persuading adolescents to take that first step could have enormous potential in halting the growing rates of HIV, AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases, a University of Florida researcher has found.

What’s more, the language and words that parents, health educators and public service campaigns use in their efforts to steer young people toward using condoms likely have tremendous influence on the success of those endeavors.

“Through media, education, all of these things can influence people’s feelings towards words and the meaning that goes along with those words," said Virginia Noland, a UF assistant professor of health, education and behavior whose study on condom use is published in the June issue of the journal Psychological Reports.

"And so when we’ve got favorable feelings, let’s keep going with it and let’s encourage (condom) use. Our competition is fierce, and so we need to take every advantage we can get.”

Noland's study of 173 sexually active undergraduate university students found men and women were equally likely to connote positive feelings to the word "condom."

More striking, the research found, those who indicated they’d had at least one experience using a condom - termed "ever-users" - indicated significantly more positive emotional reactions to the word than did their counterparts who had never used the protection.

“The dictionary definitions of words don’t change, but our feelings towards words change," Noland said. "They change in the realm of human sexuality, and it’s just extremely important for all of us - in education, in health care, in law enforcement - to realize the emotional feelings that words can evoke in people.”

An estimated 86 percent of college students are sexually active, according to the Centers for Disease Control, yet a 2000 survey cited in the article showed that just 35 percent of unmarried adults reported using a condom the last time they’d had sex. The AIDS epidemic among young adults in the United States is an increasing concern, with HIV infection the seventh leading cause of death among those 13 to 24, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Compounding the problem is a common feeling among adolescents that they are invincible, which may cause them to engage in risky behavior, according to the NIH.

In the current study, Noland and co-researcher Robert McDermott, a professor of health education at the University of South Florida, asked 88 men and 85 women, average age 19, to rate each of 15 adjective pairs describing condoms on a seven-point scale from most favorable to least favorable. The word pairs included natural/unnatural, successful/unsuccessful, good/bad, quick/time-consuming and pleasurable/painful.

The average overall score for ever-users was 47.4, compared with 54.6 among never-users. The lowest total score - the most favorable - was 15, the median score was 60, and the highest - or least favorable - was 105. Overall average favorability scores among men and women were nearly identical at 48.5 and 48.9, the study found. No significant racial differences were detected, Noland said.

Adolescents are rating condoms favorably, she said, adding “Now we have to work on getting them to use them and getting them to use them consistently.”