HIV Attitudes Scale for Adolescents (Espada et al., 2013)

• Populations: Adolescents
• Age ranges: 14-19 years
• Languages: Colombian Spanish, English, Spanish, Portugese
• Countries: Colombia; Portugal; Spain

Items

Subscales:

• Obstacles to safe sex
• Attitudes toward the HIV test
• Attitudes toward using condoms
• Attitudes toward people living with HIV

Obstacles to Safe Sex

• If my partner would ask me to have unprotected sex I would refuse it.
• if my partner would want to have sex without a condom, I would try to convice him / her to use it.
• If I were going to have sex and realize that I have no condoms, I would wait until I have them to maintain sexual intercourse.

Attitudes toward the HIV test

• I would be willing to be tested for AIDS if I had had a risk behavior.
• I would recommend a friend to get tested for HIV if he / she had had sexual risk behaviors.

Attitudes towards Using Condoms

• I would be willing to say that I agree with the use of condoms in front of my group of friends
• I would be willing to publicly defend the use of condoms
• I would be willing to carry condoms for my use
• I would be wiling to use condoms in a sexual relationship

Attitudes toward people living with HIV

• If a friend becam infected with HIV, I would probably distance myself from him.
• I would be uncomfortable if someone with AIDS attended to my class./
• I would be willing to kiss on the cheek to an HIV positve person.

Full Scale

• Estaría dispuesto/a a usar el preservativo en una relación sexual con penetración
• Si fuera a tener una relación sexual y me doy cuenta de que no tenemos preservativos, esperaría a tenerlos para mantener el contacto sexual
• Estaría dispuesto/a a llevar preservativos para mi uso
• Estaría dispuesto/a a decir delante de mis amigos que estoy a favor del preservativo
• Estaría dispuesto/a a defender en público el uso del preservativo
• Si mi pareja quisiera prescindir del preservativo, yo trataría de convencerlo/a para usarlo
• Si mi pareja quisiera practicar sexo sin preservativo, yo me negaría
• Estaría incómodo/a si en mi clase hubiese alguien con sida
•  Estaría dispuesto/a a besar en la mejilla a una persona seropositiva
• Si un amigo/a se infectara con el VIH, probablemente me distanciaría de él
• Estaría dispuesto a realizarme las pruebas del sida si tuviera una práctica de riesgo
• Recomendaría a un amigo/a hacerse las pruebas de detección del VIH si éste/a hubiese mantenido prácticas de riesgo

Responses: 

Four response alternatives ranging from 1 = Completely disagree to 4 = Completely agree)

Scoring

“The total score ranges between 12 and 48” (Morales et al., 2019)

Citations

Espada, J. P., Ballester, R., Huedo-Medina, T., Secades-Villa, R., Orgilés, M., & Martínez-Lorca, M. (2013). Desarrollo de un nuevo instrumento para evaluar las actitudes hacia el VIH/SIDA en adolescentes españoles. Anales de Psicología, 29(1), 83–89. https://doi.org/10.6018/analesps.29.1.132301

Gómez-Lugo, M., Morales, A., Saavedra-Roa, A., Niebles-Charris, J., García-Roncallo, P., Marchal-Bertrand, L., Espada, J. P., & Vallejo-Medina, P. (2020). Psychometric Properties of the Colombian Version of the HIV Attitudes Scale for Adolescents. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(13), 4686. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17134686

Morales, A., Espada, J. P., Reis, S., & Orgilés, M. (2019). Portuguese Version of the HIV-Related Attitudes Scale (HIV-AS) for Adolescents: Adaptation, Validation, and Equivalency Factor With the Spanish Version. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 35(4), 479–489. https://doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759/a000426