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Perceived Risk of HIV

Anchoring Vignettes for Perceived Risk of HIV

Questions:

  1. In your opinion, what is the likelihood (chance?) that [name of person is/you are] infected with HIV/AIDS now?
Response categories:
  1. No likelihood
  2. Low
  3. Medium
  4. High

Vignettes:

  1. [Tom] does not have a regular girlfriend, but he visits the local bars often (three times a week) and gives bargirls some money or presents in exchange for sex. Most of the time he uses condoms with the bargirls if he is not too drunk and remembered to bring them.

  2. [Jane]'s husband works in the city for three months every year. While he is there he often goes to bars and gets drunk. Neighbors have told Jane that her husband sometimes sleeps with bar girls, and he does not use condoms with them. [Jane] has had no other sexual partners.

  3. [Edith] is a single girl. She has had sex with three men in her life; she has always used condoms with them. She had sex with each of them once or twice.

  4. [John] is unmarried and has two girlfriends. One lives in his home village and the other in the nearby village. He almost always uses condoms with each partner.

  5. Before [Margaret] got married she had three different boyfriends. With each of them she had sex for about a year; two were young boys from her village and one was an older man whose wife had died after a long illness. Now she is married to a man who also had three partners before marriage but both have remained faithful since their marriage.

  6. [Agnes] is unmarried and has had one other sexual partner before meeting her current boyfriend. Her current boyfriend is one year older than she is. He told her he wants to be monogamous and faithful, and plans to marry her.

  7. [Simon] always used condoms with sexual partners before marriage. He is now married to a woman who is faithful to him, and he claims to have changed his ways and is also faithful.

  8. [Angela] had a baby three months ago. While her husband was away working in the city, the baby died. Her husband moves around with different girls in the city while he is away. When he came back, the elders told [Angela] to bring in fisi before she slept with her husband again. She has never had sex with anyone except her husband and the man who performs fisi for the village women.