Revealing and Receiving Sexual Health Information

This investigation applies communication privacy management theory to examine sexual health disclosures from the perspectives of disclosers and confidants. A Qualtrics survey distributed through Amazon Mechanical Turk yielded 161 participants who disclosed sexual health information to a partner and 130 who received a disclosure. Accounts of the conversations were analyzed with content analysis to describe the linkage rules of the disclosures. Motivation to reveal or conceal, risks and benefits, and gender hypotheses and research questions were ascertained using descriptive statistics and tests of difference. Linkage rules for the majority of participants indicate that disclosures are made in a straightforward style before a sexual episode or on the day of diagnosis. Disclosures were perceived to be of above average quality and resulted in increased relational closeness. Tentative results suggest there may be disclosure differences based on privacy orientation. There were no significant differences based on type of diagnosis or gender.