P4.081 STD Risk Perception Among Higher Risk University Students in Halifax, Canada
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background Perceived risk is central to health behaviour theory, though little is known about what creates perceived risk of contracting STDs. We examined self-rated risk of STD in higher sexual risk (HSR) university students in Halifax, Canada, to determine factors associated with recognition of such risk status. Methods Using an online survey, we asked university students about their perception of their STD risk (greatly/quite a lot at risk versus not very much/no risk), their sexual behaviours, chlamydia knowledge (CK), friends’ more liberal attitudes to sexual risk-taking (FLASRT), depression, and personal factors. HSR was defined as having had both ≥ 2 partners for vaginal sex in the past year and no condom use at last intercourse. Variables initially associated with perceived HSR (p < 0.10) were entered into a logistic regression model controlling for gender to determine which remained associated with perception of being at HSR. Results The survey response rate was 32% (N = 4490), and 526 were at HSR. Of those with 2–5 partners in the previous year, only 14% rated themselves as at HSR, while 43% of those with ≥ 6 partners did so. In multivariate analysis, compared with those with 2 partners, those with 3 partners and those with 4 were not significantly more likely to perceive themselves at HSR. At 5 partners the Odds Ratio (OR) was 5.30 (95% CI 2.30–12.22) and at ≥ 6 partners it was 9.18; (95% CI 4.42–19.09). FLASRT was also associated with perceived higher risk (OR 1.07; 95% CI 1.02–1.13). CK was not associated with risk perception. Conclusion Higher risk university students often do not recognise their STD risk status, and more often perceive risk only after a high threshold of multiple partners is reached. Prevention messages should emphasise that STD risk exists at lower levels of multiple partners than students perceive.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.020 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".