Alcohol Use Predicts Sexual Decision-Making: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Experimental Literature

AIDS and Behavior

Volumn 20, Issue , 2016, Pages 19-39

  Scott Sheldon, Lori A J ^a,b,c   Carey, Kate B ^d   Cunningham, Karlene ^a,b,e   Johnson, Blair T ^f   Carey, Michael P ^a,b,c  

^a MIRIAM HOSPITAL   (United States)

^b BROWN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^c BROWN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^d BROWN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^e RHODE ISLAND HOSPITAL   (United States)

^f UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT   (United States)

Author keywords

Alcohol; Experimental methods; Meta analysis; Sexual behavior; Unprotected sex

Indexed keywords

ADOLESCENT; ADVERSE EFFECTS; BEHAVIOR; DECISION MAKING; DRINKING BEHAVIOR; FEMALE; HIGH RISK BEHAVIOR; HIV INFECTIONS; HUMAN; MALE; META ANALYSIS; PSYCHOLOGY; SEXUAL BEHAVIOR; TRANSMISSION; UNSAFE SEX; YOUNG ADULT;

ADOLESCENT; ALCOHOL DRINKING; DECISION MAKING; FEMALE; HIV INFECTIONS; HUMANS; INTENTION; MALE; RISK-TAKING; SEXUAL BEHAVIOR; UNSAFE SEX; YOUNG ADULT;

EID: 84955211212     PISSN: 10907165     EISSN: 15733254     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s10461-015-1108-9     Document Type: Article

References (88)

1. Shuper PA, Joharchi N, Irving H, Rehm J. Alcohol as a correlate of unprotected sexual behavior among people living with HIV/AIDS: review and meta-analysis. AIDS Behav. 2009;13(6):1021–36.
2. Shuper PA, Neuman M, Kanteres F, Baliunas D, Joharchi N, Rehm J. Causal considerations on alcohol and HIV/AIDS–a systematic review. Alcohol Alcohol (Oxf, Oxfs). 2010;45(2):159–66.
3. Halpern-Felsher BL, Millstein SG, Ellen JM. Relationship of alcohol use and risky sexual behavior: a review and analysis of findings. J Adolesc Health. 1996;19(5):331–6.
4. Leigh BC, Stall R. Substance use and risky sexual behavior for exposure to HIV: issues in methodology, interpretation, and prevention. Am Psychol. 1993;48(10):1035–45.
5. Hendershot CS, George WH. Alcohol and sexuality research in the AIDS era: trends in publication activity, target populations and research design. AIDS Behav. 2007;11(2):217–26.
6. Shiffman S, Stone AA, Hufford MR. Ecological momentary assessment. Annu Rev Clin Psychol. 2008;4:1–32.
7. Steele CM, Josephs RA. Alcohol myopia. Its prized and dangerous effects. Am Psychol. 1990;45(8):921–33.
8. Crowe LC, George WH. Alcohol and human sexuality: review and integration. Psychol Bull. 1989;105(3):374–86.
9. Lang AR. The social psychology of drinking and human sexuality. J Drug Issues. 1985;15(2):273–89.
10. Rohsenow DJ, Marlatt GA. The balanced placebo design: methodological considerations. Addict Behav. 1981;6(2):107–22.
11. Marlatt GA, Rohsenow DJ. Cognitive processes in alcohol use: expectancy and the balanced placebo design. In: Mello NK, editor. Advances in substance abuse: behavioral and biological research. Greenwich: JAI Press; 1980. p. 159–99.
12. Albarracin D, Johnson BT, Fishbein M, Muellerleile PA. Theories of reasoned action and planned behavior as models of condom use: a meta-analysis. Psychol Bull. 2001;127(1):142–61.
13. Sheeran P, Abraham C, Orbell S. Psychosocial correlates of heterosexual condom use: a meta-analysis. Psychol Bull. 1999;125(1):90–132.
14. Cooper ML. Does drinking promote risky sexual behavior? A complex answer to a simple question. Curr Dir Psychol Sci. 2006;15(1):19–23.
15. Abbey A, Saenz C, Buck PO, Parkhill MR, Hayman LW Jr. The effects of acute alcohol consumption, cognitive reserve, partner risk, and gender on sexual decision making. J Stud Alcohol Drugs. 2006;67(1):113.
16. Hull JG, Bond CF Jr. Social and behavioral consequences of alcohol consumption and expectancy: a meta-analysis. Psychol Bull. 1986;99(3):347–60.
17. George WH, Stoner SA. Understanding acute alcohol effects on sexual behavior. Annu Rev Sex Res. 2000;11:92–124.
18. Rehm J, Shield KD, Joharchi N, Shuper PA. Alcohol consumption and the intention to engage in unprotected sex: systematic review and meta-analysis of experimental studies. Addiction. 2012;107(1):51–9.
19. Lipsey MW, Wilson DB. Practical meta-analysis. Thousand Oaks: Sage; 2001.
20. Moher D, Liberati A, Tetzlaff J, Altman DG, The PG. Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses: the PRISMA statement. PLoS Med. 2009;6(7):e1000097.
21. Abbey A, Saenz C, Buck PO. The cumulative effects of acute alcohol consumption, individual differences and situational perceptions on sexual decision making. J Stud Alcohol. 2005;66(1):82–90.
22. Cho Y-H, Span SA. The effect of alcohol on sexual risk-taking among young men and women. Addict Behav. 2010;35(8):779–85.
23. Conner M, Sutherland E, Kennedy F, Grearly C, Berry C. Impact of alcohol on sexual decision making: intentions to have unprotected sex. Psychol Health. 2008;23(8):909–34.
24. Davis KC. The influence of alcohol expectancies and intoxication on men’s aggressive unprotected sexual intentions. Exp Clin Psychopharmacol. 2010;18(5):418–28.
25. Davis KC, George WH, Norris J, et al. Effects of alcohol and blood alcohol concentration limb on sexual risk-taking intentions. J Stud Alcohol Drugs. 2009;70(4):499.
26. Davis KC, Hendershot CS, George WH, Norris J, Heiman JR. Alcohol’s effects on sexual decision making: an integration of alcohol myopia and individual differences. J Stud Alcohol Drugs. 2007;68(6):843–51.
27. Davis KC, Masters NT, Eakins D, et al. Alcohol intoxication and condom use self-efficacy effects on women’s condom use intentions. Addict Behav. 2014;39(1):153–8.
28. Ebel-Lam AP, MacDonald TK, Zanna MP, Fong GT. An experimental investigation of the interactive effects of alcohol and sexual arousal on intentions to have unprotected sex. Basic Appl Soc Psychol. 2009;31(3):226–33.
29. George WH, Cue Davis K, Norris J, et al. Indirect effects of acute alcohol intoxication on sexual risk-taking: the roles of subjective and physiological sexual arousal. Arch Sex Behav. 2009;38(4):498–513.
30. Gilmore AK, George WH, Nguyen HV, Heiman JR, Davis KC, Norris J. Influences of situational factors and alcohol expectancies on sexual desire and arousal among heavy-episodic drinking women: acute alcohol intoxication and condom availability. Arch Sex Behav. 2013;42(6):949–959.
31. Gordon CM, Carey MP, Carey KB. Effects of a drinking event on behavioral skills and condom attitudes in men: implications for HIV risk from a controlled experiment. Health Psychol. 1997;16(5):490–5.
32. Kruse MI, Fromme K. Influence of physical attractiveness and alcohol on men’s perceptions of potential sexual partners and sexual behavior intentions. Exp Clin Psychopharmacol. 2005;13(2):146–56.
33. MacDonald TK, Fong GT, Zanna MP, Martineau AM. Alcohol myopia and condom use: can alcohol intoxication be associated with more prudent behavior? J Pers Soc Psychol. 2000;78(4):605–19.
34. MacDonald TK, MacDonald G, Zanna MP, Fong G. Alcohol, sexual arousal, and intentions to use condoms in young men: applying alcohol myopia theory to risky sexual behavior. Health Psychol. 2000;19(3):290–8.
35. MacDonald TK, Zanna MP. Why common sense goes out the window: effects of alcohol on intentions to use condoms. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 1996;22:763–75.
36. Maisto SA, Carey MP, Carey KB, Gordon CM, Schum JL. Effects of alcohol and expectancies on HIV-related risk perception and behavioral skills in heterosexual women. Exp Clin Psychopharmacol. 2004;12(4):288–97.
37. Maisto SA, Carey MP, Carey KB, Gordon CM. The effects of alcohol and expectancies on risk perception and behavioral skills relevant to safer sex among heterosexual young adult women. J Stud Alcohol. 2002;63(4):476–85.
38. Maisto SA, Carey MP, Carey KB, Gordon CM, Schum JL, Lynch KG. The relationship between alcohol and individual differences variables on attitudes and behavioral skills relevant to sexual health among heterosexual young adult men. Arch Sex Behav. 2004;33(6):571–84.
39. Maisto SA, Palfai T, Vanable PA, Heath J, Woolf-King SE. The effects of alcohol and sexual arousal on determinants of sexual risk in men who have sex with men. Arch Sex Behav. 2012;41(4):971–86.
40. Norris J, Stoner SA, Hessler DM, et al. Cognitive mediation of alcohol’s effects on women’s in-the-moment sexual decision making. Health Psychol. 2009;28(1):20–8.
41. Purdie MP, Norris J, Davis KC, et al. The effects of acute alcohol intoxication, partner risk level, and general intention to have unprotected sex on women’s sexual decision making with a new partner. Exp Clin Psychopharmacol. 2011;19(5):378–88.
42. Schacht RL, George WH, Davis KC, et al. Sexual abuse history, alcohol intoxication, and women’s sexual risk behavior. Arch Sex Behav. 2010;39(4):898–906.
43. Stoner SA. Alcohol and sexual disinhibition among college students [PhD]. US: Psychology, University of Washington; 2003.
44. Wray TB, Simons JS, Maisto SA. Effects of alcohol intoxication and autonomic arousal on delay discounting and risky sex in young adult heterosexual men. Addict Behav. 2015;42:9–13.
45. Zawacki T. Effects of alcohol on women’s risky sexual decision making during social interactions in the laboratory. Psychol Women Q. 2011;35(1):107–18.
46. Bushman BJ, Cooper HM. Effects of alcohol on human aggression: an integrative research review. Psychol Bull. 1990;107(3):341–54.
47. Downs SH, Black N. The feasibility of creating a checklist for the assessment of the methodological quality both of randomised and non-randomised studies of health care interventions. J Epidemiol Community Health. 1998;52(6):377–84.
48. Fowkes FG, Fulton PM. Critical appraisal of published research: introductory guidelines. Br Med J. 1991;302(6785):1136–40.
49. Miller WR, Brown JM, Simpson TL, Handmaker NS, Bien TH, Luckie LF. What works? A methodological analysis of the alcohol treatment outcome literature. In: Hester RK, Miller WR, editors. Handbook of alcoholism treatment approaches: effective alternatives. 2nd ed. Needham Heights: Allyn & Bacon; 1995. p. 12–44.
50. Cohen J. Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences. 2nd ed. New York: Erlbaum; 1998.
51. Johnson BT, Eagly AH. Meta-analysis of research in social and personality psychology. In: Reis HT, Judd CM, editors. Handbook of research methods in social and personality psychology. 2nd ed. London: Cambridge University Press; 2014. p. 675–707.
52. Sanchez-Meca J, Marin-Martinez F, Chacon-Moscoso S. Effect-size indices for dichotomized outcomes in meta-analysis. Psychol Methods. 2003;8(4):448–67.
53. Hedges LV. Distribution theory for Glass’s estimator of effect size and related estimators. J Edu Behav Stat. 1981;6:107–28.
54. Stata/SE [computer program], Cohen J. Version 12.1 for Windows. College Station: StataCorp LP; 2013.
55. Meta-analysis macros for SAS, SPSS, and Stata [computer program]; 2001.
56. Huedo-Medina TB, Sanchez-Meca J, Marin-Martinez F, Botella J. Assessing heterogeneity in meta-analysis: Q statistic or I2 index? Psychol Methods. 2006;11(2):193–206.
57. Higgins JP, Thompson SG. Quantifying heterogeneity in a meta-analysis. Stat Med. 2002;21(11):1539–58.
58. Higgins JP, Thompson SG, Deeks JJ, Altman DG. Measuring inconsistency in meta-analyses. Br Med J. 2003;327(7414):557–60.
59. Harbord RM, Higgins JPT. Meta-regression in Stata. Stata J. 2008;8(4):493–519.
60. Hedges LV. Fixed effects models. In: Cooper H, Hedges LV, editors. The handbook of research synthesis. New York: Russell Sage Foundation; 1994. p. 285–99.
61. Rosenthal R. The “file-drawer” problem and tolerance for null results. Psychol Bull. 1979;86:638–41.
62. Sterne JA, Egger M. Funnel plots for detecting bias in meta-analysis: guidelines on choice of axis. J Clin Epidemiol. 2001;54(10):1046–55.
63. Begg CB, Mazumdar M. Operating characteristics of a rank correlation test for publication bias. Biometrics. 1994;50(4):1088–101.
64. Egger M, Smith DG, Schneider M, Minder C. Bias in meta-analysis detected by a simple, graphical test. Br Med J. 1997;315(7109):629–34.
65. Duval S, Tweedie R. Trim and fill: a simple funnel-plot-based method of testing and adjusting for publication bias in meta-analysis. Biometrics. 2000;56(2):455–63.
66. Borenstein M. Software for publication bias. In: Rothstein H, Sutton AJ, Borenstein M, editors. Publication bias in meta-analysis: prevention, assessment and adjustments. West Sussex: Wiley; 2005.
67. Emerson JD, Strenio J. Boxplots and batch comparisons. In: Hoaglin DC, Mosteller F, Tukey JW, editors. Understanding robust and exploratory data analysis. New York: Wiley; 1983. p. 58–96.
68. Terrin N, Schmid CH, Lau J, Olkin I. Adjusting for publication bias in the presence of heterogeneity. Stat Med. 2003;22(13):2113–26.
69. Lau J, Ioannidis JP, Terrin N, Schmid CH, Olkin I. The case of the misleading funnel plot. Br Med J. 2006;333(7568):597–600.
70. Sutton AJ. Publication bias. In: Cooper H, Hedges LV, Valentine JC, editors. The handbook of research synthesis and meta-analysis. 2nd ed. New York: Sage; 2009. p. 435–52.
71. Petersen JL, Hyde JS. Gender differences in sexual attitudes and behaviors: a review of meta-analytic results and large datasets. J Sex Res. 2011;48(2/3):149–65.
72. Schroder KE, Carey MP, Vanable PA. Methodological challenges in research on sexual risk behavior: II. Accuracy of self-reports. Ann Behav Med. 2003;26(2):104–23.
73. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. HIV in the United States: at a glance. Fast facts. 2015. http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/pdf/statistics_basics_ataglance_factsheet.pdf. Accessed 8 May 2015.
74. Dermen KH, Cooper ML. Sex-related alcohol expectancies among adolescents: I. Scale development. Psychol Addict Behav. 1994;8(3):152.
75. George WH, Davis KC, Masters NT, et al. Sexual victimization, alcohol intoxication, sexual-emotional responding, and sexual risk in heavy episodic drinking women. Arch Sex Behav. 2013;42:949–59.
76. Masters NT, George WH, Davis KC, et al. Women’s unprotected sex intentions: roles of sexual victimization, intoxication, and partner perception. J Sex Res. 2014;51(5):586–98.
77. Schacht RL, George WH, Heiman JR, et al. Effects of alcohol intoxication and instructional set on women’s sexual arousal vary based on sexual abuse history. Arch Sex Behav. 2007;36(5):655–65.
78. Gilmore AK, Schacht RL, George WH, et al. Assessing women’s sexual arousal in the context of sexual assault history and acute alcohol intoxication. J Sex Med. 2010;7(6):2112–9.
79. Gordon CM. Alcohol’s influence on requisites for HIV-risk reduction [Dissertation]. Syracuse: Psychology, Syracuse University; 1996
80. Gordon CM, Carey MP. Alcohol’s effects on requisites for sexual risk reduction in men: an initial experimental investigation. Health Psychol. 1996;15(1):56–60.
81. MacDonald TK, Fong GT. The effects of alcohol on intentions to use condoms. Paper presented at: 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association. Los Angeles, 12–16; 1994
82. Stoner SA, Norris J, George WH, et al. Women’s condom use assertiveness and sexual risk-taking: effects of alcohol intoxication and adult victimization. Addict Behav. 2008;33(9):1167–76.
83. Norris J, Stoner SA, Hessler DA, et al. Influences of sexual sensation seeking, alcohol consumption, and sexual arousal on women’s behavioral intentions related to having unprotected sex. Psychol Addict Behav. 2009;23(1):14–22.
84. Zawacki T, Norris J, Hessler DM, et al. Effects of relationship motivation, partner familiarity, and alcohol on women’s risky sexual decision making. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2009;35(6):723–36.
85. Schacht RL. Women’s sexual behavior, attitudes, and alcohol-related sex risk following sexual assault in childhood, adulthood, or both [Ph.D.]. Ann Arbor, University of Washington; 2011.
86. Stoner SA, George WH, Peters LM, Norris J. Liquid courage: alcohol fosters risky sexual decision-making in individuals with sexual fears. AIDS Behav. 2007;11(2):227–37.
87. Wray TB. Delay discounting and risky sexual intentions: A test of the direct and indirect effects of alcohol intoxication and physiological arousal [Ph.D.]. Ann Arbor, University of South Dakota; 2013.
88. Wilkinson GS. The wide range achievement test (WRAT3) administration manual. Wilmington: Wide Range; 1993.