Existe amplia evidencia de los efectos de la ansiedad precompetitiva (e.g. Bueno, Capdevila y Fernández-Castro, 2002; Caracuel y Jaenes, 2015) en las prácticas y pruebas deportivas, así como del rol protector de las estrategias de afrontamiento que emplean los deportistas (e.g., Soto, 2003). Sin embargo, debido a que las prácticas deportivas competitivas se diferencian, entre otras cosas, en su carácter colectivo o individual, tanto la ansiedad competitiva como las estrategias de afrontamiento involucradas pudiesen diferenciarse según dicha condición (e.g., Simón y Martens,1979). El presente estudio corresponde a una exploración sobre posibles efectos diferenciales del tipo de práctica sobre la ansiedad precompetitiva, las estrategias de afrontamiento y la relación entre ambas. El diseño fue transversal de tipo correlacional, en el cual se aplico el Inventario de Ansiedad Competitiva en el Deporte (CSAI-2) y el Cuestionario de Aproximación al Afrontamiento en el Deporte (ACSQ-1) a 22 nadadores individuales y 28 jugadores de waterpolo, minutos antes de una competición oficial. Los resultados indican que existen diferencias solo en los niveles de autoconfianza, pero que la relación entre estrategias de afrontamiento y ansiedad precompetitiva es distinta entre grupos. Finalmente, se sugieren modelos diferenciados de intervención, el alcance de los resultados, las limitaciones del estudio y se sugieren nuevas investigaciones.

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a global health problem, with sexual risk behaviors (SRB) being the main routes of spreading the virus. Evidence indicates that different psychological factors influence SRB (e.g., attitude towards condoms, sexual self-concept, sexual sensation seeking, knowledge of sexual risk behaviors, risk perception). This study proposes an explanatory model of sexual risk behaviors in young people and adults. The sample consisted of 992 young people and adults aged between 18 and 35 years. The model presented good levels of fit (X2 = 3311.433, df = 1471, CFI = 0.964, TLI = 0.959, RMSEA = 0.036), explaining 56% of the variance of sexual activity with multiple partners, 77% of the inadequate use of protective barriers, and 58.8% of sexual activity under the influence of alcohol or drugs from a set of psychological factors in self-report measures. The details of the results offer novel contextual evidence for the prioritization of prevention-oriented psychosocial interventions.

Condom use is the most effective preventive behavior against HIV transmission, and its inadequate use is a public health problem that occurs mostly among youth and young adults. Although there are scales that measure condom use, those that exist correspond to English-speaking developments or do not have psychometric evidence to support them, so it is possible that the available adaptations of instruments do not adequately reflect the phenomenon in the Chilean population. Thus, the study aims to develop a scale to assess attitudes toward condom use in Chilean youth and young adults. Initially, a sample of students between 18 and 39 years (n = 520) was used for debugging the instrument. Then, a second sample was taken from the general population aged 18 to 40 (n = 992) to confirm the factor structure of the proposed model. The final scale has 10 items and 3 attitudinal dimensions (affective, cognitive, and behavioral). The results show that the identified structure provides adequate levels (ω > 0.7) or at least sufficient of reliability (ω > 0.6) and presents evidence of validity, based on the internal structure of the test, through ESEM (CFI = 0.993; TLI = 0.984; RMSEA = 0.056). In addition, evidence of validity was obtained based on the relationship with other variables and strong invariance between the scores of men and women. It is concluded that the scale developed has adequate psychometric properties to assess, in brief form, condom use attitudes in equal samples for research and screening purposes.

Background/objective: STIs and HIV/AIDS are an important public health problem, transmitted by risky sex behaviours. In this context, it is necessary to identify protective factors, of those behaviours, as sexual self-concept. Sexual self-concept is a multidimensional trait (i.e. sexual self-esteem; sexual self-efficacy; and sexual assertiveness), but, in an extensive review, we did not find any measure to assess this multidimensional construct in a Spanish-speaking context. The objective of this research is development a scale to assess sexual self-concept in young people and adults. Method: Time-space sampling with a total size of 792 participants, coming from the two Chilean cities (i.e. Arica and Iquique) with the highest HIV rates, aged between 17 and 53 years old (ME = 23.42; SD = 6.33), with 66.2% women (N = 500), 33.6% men (N = 258). Results: Final scale has 16 items and 4 dimensions: sexual self-esteem, sexual self-efficacy, assertive sexual communication, and assertive sexual behaviour. The identified structure provides satisfactory levels of reliability (ω > .8) and presents robust evidence of validity, based on the internal structure of the test, using ESEM (RMSEA = .060; CFI = .99; TLI = .98), evidence of validity based on relationship to other variables (i.e. risky sexual behaviour) and measurement invariance between men and women. Conclusions: The multidimensional scale of sexual self-concept has adequate psychometric properties to assess sexual selfconcept in equivalent samples.

HIV/AIDS is a public health problem that is transmitted through risky sexual behavior. The literature suggests that the perception of HIV risk is a motivator for the prevention of risky sexual behaviors. There is no culturally adapted scale to assess HIV risk perception in the Hispanic-American population. The aim of this research was to develop a scale to assess HIV risk perception in Hispanic-American young adults. A cross-sectional instrumental design was used, with a sample of students from the Chilean city with the highest HIV rates. Participants (n = 524) were between 18 and 33 years old, of whom 51% were women, 84.4% said they were heterosexual and 43.7% said they had not been tested for HIV/AIDS. The final scale has 9 items and 2 dimensions: (1) perceived risk susceptibility and (2) perceived risk severity. The results showed that the identified structure provided adequate levels of reliability (ω > .8) and presented evidence of validity, based on the internal structure of the test (i.e., using ESEM) and on the relationship with other variables (i.e., the sexual risk behaviors scale). In addition, the results showed strong invariance between the scores for men and women. It is concluded that the HIV risk perception scale has adequate psychometric properties to assess HIV risk perception in equivalent samples.