Assessing sexual motives for drinking alcohol among HIV-positive men who have sex with men

Individuals who drink alcohol for the explicit motive of facilitating or enhancing sex may be more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior, including having sex under the influence of alcohol. However, efforts to assess sexual motives for drinking (SMDs) have been very limited to date. We examined the psychometric properties of a 5-item measure of SMDs in a sample of HIV-positive heavy drinking men who have sex with men. Findings provided excellent support for the scale's internal consistency and concurrent validity with a well-established measure of sexual alcohol expectancies (SAEs). Good discriminant validity was also established, as SMDs were correlated with other drinking motives but uniquely predicted the proportion of sex acts occurring under the influence of alcohol and other drugs, over and above other drinking motives and SAEs. SMDs were not significantly associated with unprotected anal intercourse. Adjusting for alcohol problem severity, higher SMDs were associated with lower willingness to consider changing drinking. Results suggest this measure of SMDs exhibits sound psychometric properties and may be useful in studies examining the association between alcohol use and sexual behavior.