The social cognitive theory involves the use of individual knowledge acquisition that is directly associated with the different quotas of the context related to social experiences, interactions and outside the broadcasting influence. There is always a relationship between sexually risk behavior and HIV prevalence in any community. This paper looks at different research findings on the relationship between the social cognitive theory and sexual risk behavior that risks the African American women in obtaining the Sexually transmitted diseases, HIV being among them.
In one of the studies that are aimed at determining whether the knowledge obtained by the African American women is enough to consider the risky behavior, the research investigates in the social cognitive behaviors in four areas. The areas include the use of illicit drugs, heterosexual transmission, low and sporadic condom usage and the indulgence of multiple sex partners (Perkins, Spriggs, Kwegyir-Afful, & Prather, 2014). These factors are related in one way or another to people that are HIV negative or positive. The research aims at finding whether the knowledge alone among the African American women is sufficient to provide different risk-taking behaviors concerning HIV/AIDS and other STIs.
From the research, the findings indicate that the knowledge among groups of people that are negative and positive is not significantly different. Both groups are aware of the consequences of their risky behaviors, but this is not sufficient to alter their behaviors toward indulging in sexually risky behaviors related. The knowledge of the behaviors is significantly the same despite being expected to be high in individuals that are negative rather than positive (Wingood, DiClemente, Robinson-Simpson, Lang, Caliendo, & Hardin, 2013).
The different researchers indicate that HIV is the leading cause of death among the African American women aged between twenty-five to thirty-four years. The regions particularity affected are the southern regions of the United States. Despite the HIV interventions that have been published before, few of the materials address sexual concurrency. From the different research, the findings indicate that the African American adult women are burdened in a disproportionate way by the STIs. There are environmental factors that relate to the social cognitive that are related to sexually risky behaviors. Among the low-income women, they are considered as a high-risk sample (Snead et.al, 2014).
Some of the results prove that there is a high inconsistency in the use of condoms prevalently despite the history of positive STI test results in African American women. Sexually risk behaviors are not associated with the self-efficacy for future orientation and partner communication. From the results, there needs to be an improved component of self-efficacy for sex refusal in the sexual risk reduction transmission programs. The programs also need to focus on the peer behaviors and efficacy on culture-tailored norms.
Understanding of relationship between the theory and health topic
From the above research, for the desired results to be produced in trying to prevent the prevalence of sexually risky behaviors, the various programs need to focus more than just providing the knowledge to African American women (Cene-Kush, 2012). For efficiency in reducing the sexually risky behaviors, African American women possess knowledge significantly that can aid them in reducing the sexually risky behaviors. However, possessing the knowledge has proved not to be enough according to the different research.
From the different social encounters of the African American women, they do not provide the efficacy of the preventive nature that the various health shareholders would wish to see. From the research, it is no doubt that social behaviors contribute to the increased risks of sexual prevalence. There are culture-tailored behaviors that increase the sexually risky behaviors. The nursing practice can try and aid in the situation through providing more knowledge especially during treatment of patients that have encountered the different STIs. The reason behind this is that despite the various encounters of STIs, it does not reduce the sexually risky behaviors due to the social interactions. The knowledge of the behaviors being risky does not aid in the effort to reduce the prevalence of the sexually transmitted diseases.
- Cene-Kush, C. J. (2012). Social Cognitive Correlates of HIV-associated Sexual Risk Behavior Among African-American Adult Women (Doctoral dissertation, Emory University).
- Perkins, E. L., Stennis, K. B., Spriggs, V. T., Kwegyir-Afful, E. A., & Prather, A. (2014). Is Knowledge Enough? Considering HIV/AIDS Risk Behaviors and HIV/AIDS Knowledge with African American Women. International Journal of high-risk behaviors & addiction, 3(3).
- Snead, M. C., O’Leary, A. M., Mandel, M. G., Kourtis, A. P., Wiener, J., Jamieson, D. J., … & Rietmeijer, C. A. (2014). The relationship between social cognitive theory constructs and self-reported condom use: assessment of behavior in a subgroup of the Safe in the City trial. BMJ open, 4(12), e006093.
- Wingood, G. M., DiClemente, R. J., Robinson-Simpson, L., Lang, D. L., Caliendo, A., & Hardin, J. W. (2013). Efficacy of an HIV intervention in reducing high-risk HPV, non-viral STIs, and concurrency among African-American Women: a randomized controlled trial. Journal of acquired immune deficiency syndromes (1999), 63(0 1), S36.
