Sex of Interviewer, Place of Interview, and Responses of Homosexual Men to Sensitive Questions

Authors

William W. Darrow, U.S. Department of Health and Human ServicesFollow
Harold W. Jaffe, U.S. Department of Health and Human ServicesFollow
Pauline A. Thomas, U.S. Department of Health and Human ServicesFollow
Harry W. Haverkos, U.S. Department of Health and Human ServicesFollow
Martha F. Rogers, U.S. Department of Health and Human ServicesFollow
Mary Guinan, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow
David M. Auerbach, U.S. Department of Health and Human ServicesFollow
Thomas J. Spira, U.S. Department of Health and Human ServicesFollow
James W. Curran, U.S. Department of Health and Human ServicesFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-1986

Publication Title

Archives of Sexual Behavior

Volume

15

Issue

1

First page number:

79

Last page number:

88

Abstract

Effects of sex of interviewer and place of interview on the responses of 57 AIDS patients and 145 other homosexual men were studied. Data on sensitive topics were collected by five male and three female medical officers at places convenient to respondents. Male physicians recorded fellatio more frequently, but female physicians recorded younger ages of initiating homosexual activities and more frequent use of certain recreational drugs. These differences apparently were due to different patterns of sexual contact and drug use in four cities. Patients with AIDS tended to be interviewed in hospitals and doctors' offices, other men tended to be interviewed in hotel rooms, and patients tended to be different from other men. After adjustments were made for confounding, sex of interviewer and place of interview seemed to have little influence on the answers obtained.

Keywords

AIDS (Disease) – Patients; Gay men; Medical history taking

Disciplines

Agriculture | Community-Based Learning | Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication | Immune System Diseases | Male Urogenital Diseases | Place and Environment | Public Health | Virus Diseases

Language

English

Permissions

Use Find in Your Library, contact the author, or use interlibrary loan to garner a copy of the article. Publisher copyright policy allows author to archive post-print (author’s final manuscript). When post-print is available or publisher policy changes, the article will be deposited

Repository Citation

Darrow, W. W., Jaffe, H. W., Thomas, P. A., Haverkos, H. W., Rogers, M. F., Guinan, M., Auerbach, D. M., Spira, T. J., Curran, J. W. (1986). Sex of Interviewer, Place of Interview, and Responses of Homosexual Men to Sensitive Questions. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 15(1), 79-88.