Measures

Participants in all three studies were asked if they were out about their sexual orientation to their mother, their father, or both. In the ChiGuys and RADAR samples, participants who reported being out to a parent were then asked about each parent’s response on a one to four scale ranging from “Very Positive” to “Very Negative.” Parental rejection was scored as the mean of each parents’ reaction, or a single parent’s reaction when only one reaction was described.

Parental knowledge was measured in both the ChiGuys and Crew 450 sample using the five-item parental knowledge subscale of the Parenting Style Questionnaire (PSQ)^47,48. The parental knowledge subscale asked about parental knowledge of adolescent behavior such as “How often do your parents/caregivers check in with you to see what you are up to?” Questions on the PSQ were measured on a five-point scale with response options “Never or almost never,” “Occasionally,” “About half the time,” “Often,” and “Always or almost always” coded as zero to four. Alphas were acceptable in both ChiGuys (α = .81) and Crew 450 (α = .83). In order to measure parental knowledge as it related to knowledge of adolescent’s attendance of gay events and with gay friends, we modified questions on the PSQ to create a separate three-item scale that measured gay-specific parental knowledge. The gay-specific scale also had adequate reliability in both samples (ChiGuys: α = .78; Crew 450: α = .90). Mean composites were created for both parental knowledge and gay-specific parental knowledge.

In the RADAR sample, parental monitoring was measured with the eight-item Poor Family Management (PFM) subscale from the Family Risk and Protective Factors section of the Communities that Care study^49-51. The PFM includes questions about parent’s monitoring behaviors such as “If I skip school, I will be caught by my parents/caregivers.” Response options were on a four-point scale from “Strongly disagree” to “Strongly agree” coded as one to four. For participants over the age of 18, the questions on the PFM were reworded in the past tense (i.e., “The rules in my family are clear” became “The rules in my family were clear”). The PFM scale had adequate reliability for the sample as a whole (α = .83) as well as for participants 18 years and under (α = .83) and 19 and over (α = .83). A mean composite was created from the eight items.

In the ChiGuys sample, participants were asked to report the number of times in the previous 30 days they had binge drank, defined as five or more drinks on a single occasion. Participants who reported that they had never had a drink were coded as zero. In the Crew 450 sample, participants were asked “During the past six months, how often did you have five or more drinks containing alcohol within a two-hour period?” Response options ranged from zero to nine and included “zero days,” “one or two days in the past six months,” “three to five days in the past six months,” “One day a month,” “two to three days a month,” “One day a week,” “Two days a week,” “three to four days a week,” “five to six days a week,” and “Everyday.” Participants in the RADAR sample were asked “How often do you have six or more drinks on one occasion?” in the previous six months. Response options were coded as zero to four and included “Never,” “Less than monthly,” “Monthly,” “Weekly,” and “Daily or almost daily.”

Participants in the ChiGuys sample were asked to report how often they had used marijuana in the past 12 months on an eight-point scale (coded as zero to seven) with response options “Never,” “Less than once a month,” “Once a month,” “More than once a month,” “Once a week,” “More than once a week,” “Once a day,” and “More than once a day.” Participants who reported having never used marijuana were coded as zero. In the Crew 450 sample, participants were asked “During the past six months, how many times did you use marijuana?” Response options were coded zero to six and included “zero times,” “one to two times in past six months,” “Once a month or less (three to six times in past six months),” “two or three times a month,” “one or two times a week,” “three to five times a week,” and “Everyday or almost everyday.” In the RADAR sample, participants were asked “On how many occasions have you used marijuana (also called weed or pot) in the past 30 days?” with response options “0,” “1-2,” “3-5,” “6-9,” “10-19,” “20-39,” and “40 or more” (coded zero to seven).

To assess drug use in the ChiGuys sample, a dichotomous variable was created such that participants who reported using cocaine, crack, methamphetamine, non-prescription downers or pain killers, ecstasy, heroin, or poppers in the previous 12 months were coded as one, and participants who reported no drug use in that period were coded as zero. The dichotomous variable was formed in this sample because of the low level of endorsement of individual drugs. Drug use in the Crew 450 sample was measured by assigning participants the value of the drug (cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines, opiates, non-prescription depressives, non-prescription stimulants, psychedelics, ecstasy, GHB, ketamine, inhalants, and poppers) that they endorsed using the most frequently in the previous six months. Response options were coded zero to six and included “zero times,” “one to two times in past six months,” “Once a month or less,” “two or three times a month,” “one or two times a week,” “three to five times a week,” and “Everyday or almost everyday.” In the RADAR sample, a quantity variable was created based on the number of unique drugs (cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines, GHB, ketamine, poppers, inhalants, hallucinogens, and ecstasy) participants endorsed using in the previous six months (range: zero to nine).

In all three samples, participants were administered the HIV Risk Assessment of Sexual Partnerships (H-RASP)⁵². The H-RASP is an assessment of sexual behavior and associated situational and contextual factors that was designed for YMSM to report partner-specific data. Participants were asked to report on the number of unprotected anal sex acts with their last three partners. A sum score was created across partners for each participant. Participants were also asked to report their total number of unprotected anal sex partners. In the ChiGuys sample, these questions were specific to the previous 12 months. In the Crew 450 and RADAR samples, the questions were specific to the previous six months.