Do homosexual and bisexual men who place others at potential risk for HIV have unique psychological profiles?

Prevention of HIV infection requires individuals to attend not only to their own risk but also whether they place others at risk. To design appropriate interventions, however, it is important to determine whether HIV positive and HIV negative individuals who place others at potential risk differ in their psychological profiles. Such differences would suggest the need for specially tailored interventions for each group. We studied 525 homosexual and bisexual men (156 HIV positive, 369 HIV negative) from the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (Pittsburgh site) to (a) identify correlates of risky behavior and (b) determine whether these correlates differed by HIV serostatus. Although HIV positive men were somewhat less likely than HIV negative men to have engaged in high-risk sexual activity in the past 6 months (e.g., unprotected insertive anal intercourse), the correlates of such activity were identical across groups. Regardless of serostatus, men placing others at potential risk were younger, less educated, had less psychological distress and greater feelings of mastery, employed fewer active behavioral coping strategies, and were heavier users of alcohol and amyl nitrate (poppers).