Examining the mediating and moderating roles of social marketing behavioural enhancers regarding consistent condom use

Abstract

Since their importance was highlighted by Ayikwa and De Jager, social marketing behavioural enhancers (SMBEs) have been investigated in terms of their causal and correlational relationships with the intention to use condoms (IUC) and consistent condom use (CCU), as people often fail to act on their intentions. However, scrutiny of their mediating and moderating roles could provide insights pertinent to the design of effective HIV and AIDS preventative programmes. This study examined whether perceived behavioural control (PBC) and IUC interact with exposure to HIV and AIDS information (EI), ease of access to condoms (EAC) and level of related knowledge (KN) in determining CCU. It also investigated whether PBC and IUC predict CCU through increasing EI, EAC, and KN. A quantitative approach was adopted and data were collected from 607 participants, aged at least 18, living in Gauteng Province, South Africa. The questionnaire administered included pre-existing items, validated through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis procedures. Regression analyses of the data for mediation and moderation testing were performed using PROCESS macro software for SPSS. The results indicated that none of the SMBEs mediated the non-significant PBC–CCU relationship: B = –0.0258, SE = 0.0199, p = 0.195. Nor did they mediate the significant IUC–CCU relationship: B = 0.0395, SE = 0.0195, p = 0.043. Similarly, none of the SMBEs were found to moderate the PBC–CCU relationship (EI*PBC: B = 0.0034, SE = 0.0056, p = 0.540; KN*PBC: B = –0.0006, SE = 0.0064, p = 0.931; EAC*PBC: B = 0.0011, SE = 0.0059, p = 0.854) as IUC–CCU relationship (EI*IUC: B = 0.0036, SE = 0.0054, p = 0.513; KN*IUC: B = –0.0096, SE = 0.0060, p = 0.111; EAC*IUC: B = 0.0044, SE = 0.0061, p = 0.469). A recommendation is made to scrutinise the mediating and moderating roles of SMBEs in the context of health behavioural models other than the theory of planned behaviour, which was considered in this study.