title: Predicting safe sex: Assessment of autoregressive and cross-lagged effects within the Theory of Planned Behavior.
abstract: Despite its popularity, few studies have assessed the temporal stability and cross-lagged effects of the Theory of Planned Behavior factors: Attitude, subjective norms and self-efficacy. For this study, 298 adolescent learners from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, filled out a Theory of Planned Behavior questionnaire on teenage pregnancy at baseline and after 6 months. Structural equation modeling showed that there were considerable cross-lagged effects between attitude and subjective norms. Temporal stability was moderate with test-retest correlations ranging from 0.37 to 0.51 and the model was able to predict intentions to have safe sex (R2 = 0.69) Implications for practice and future research are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Maastricht University, The Netherlands m.eggers@maastrichtuniversity.nl.
authors.forename: Sander M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Eggers
authors.affiliation: University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
authors.forename: Myra
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Taylor
authors.affiliation: University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
authors.forename: Reshma
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sathiparsad
authors.affiliation: Open University, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Arjan Er
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Bos
authors.affiliation: Maastricht University, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Hein
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: de Vries
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000208:ethnology*; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011247:Pregnancy; D011253:Pregnancy in Adolescence / Q000208:ethnology*; D013019:South Africa / Q000208:ethnology
keywords: KwaZulu-Natal; Theory of Planned Behavior; cross-lagged effects; teenage pregnancy; temporal stability