Validación Local de una Escala de Conductas Sexuales de Riesgo en Adolescentes Escolarizados Mexicanos

Abstract

The rate of unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases are increasing among Mexican adolescents due to sexual risk behaviors. The index of sexual risk behaviors, obtained in the scale of sexual risk behavior developed by Ingledew and Ferguson (2007), is a popular indicator to assess these sexual risk behaviors. Although there is a Spanish translation, it hasn’t been validated in Mexico. Therefore, is this scale valid and reliable in the local population? In this research project, we define sexual risk behaviors as the ones that harm sexual health as well as get a sexually transmitted disease, unintended pregnancy or become infertile. The aim of this paper is to describe the sexual risk behaviors  among Mexican adolescents, assess the psychometric soundness of the index of sexual risk behaviors and evaluate its relationship with socio-demographic variables. We sampled a non-probability sample of 385 participants (54.8% females and 45.2% males) between 15 and 18 years old. The results showed that around 28% of the participants had sexual intercourse. Regarding the psychometric properties of the index of sexual risk behaviors, we dropped item 2 due to its low internal consistency. This item was replaced by a new one related to the frequency of use of contraceptive methods. The factor solution emerged with two dimensions. We labeled the first dimension as “Risky Sex” obtaining a high internal consistency (ordinal α = .93) and the second one as “Sex Exploration” (ordinal α = .83). Moreover, the total scores of the modified scale were not normally distributed. Gender did not have an effect on sexual risk behaviors based on the modified scale. However, age had an effect on them. We conclude that being sexually active during adolescence  is a risk factor due to the high frequency of sexual risk behaviors. Moreover, the modified sexual risk behavior is a valid and reliable measure.