Washington, May 8: When asked to answer probing, personal questions on a computer rather than a pencil-and-paper questionnaire, male teenagers are much more apt to admit to dangerous behaviour, including actions risking AIDS, a study says.If the answers they type into laptops are more truthful, then the risks that young men take today are much greater than previously thought, according to the study of more than 1,600 teenagers in the 1995 National Survey of Adolescent Males, published today in the journal Science.
The study suggests that paper questionnaires and surveys conducted by personal interviewers underestimate the health and social risks that confront 15-to 19-year-old males.
The researchers assumed the computer answers to sensitive questions are more accurate than written ones, reasoning that the teens worry less about survey-takers or members of their family seeing their responses.
``The kids are just not willing to tell you about the stigmatized behaviours they've engaged in,'' saysCharles Turner, lead researcher on the project and director of the program in health and behavior measurement at the Research Triangle Institute here.
``When you give them a private way, the evidence suggests their answers are more accurate, the numbers are significantly higher,'' Turner said.
For example, the percentage of teens who said they: Engaged in male-male sexual contact was 1.5 per cent on the written survey, but 5.5 per cent on the computerised one.
Had sex with a prostitute more than tripled from 0.7 per cent to 2.5 per cent.
Used crack or cocaine during the past year nearly doubled from 3.3 per cent to 6 per cent.
Took street drugs with a needle more than tripled from 1.4 per cent to 5.2 per cent.
Carried a gun in the past 30 days rose from 7.9 per cent to 12.4 per cent.In addition, sexually active males who say they or their partner were drunk or high when they last had heterosexual intercourse more than doubled from 15.3 per cent on the written survey to 34.8 per cent on thecomputerised one.
Between 40,000 and 80,000 Americans become infected with the AIDS virus each year, and one in four are under age 20. Studies suggest that half of all people who contract HIV are infected using dirty needles, having sex with injecting drug users or being born to infected addicts.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
