The effects of using fear in public aids education on the behaviour of homosexually active men

AIDS Education is a wide ranging term which can embrace a number of different strategies to promote sexual behaviour change. This paper compares the behaviour of male homosexually active volunteers in two countries; one group being exposed to a fear based public education campaign (the Australian Grim Reaper Public AIDS Campaign, n = 77), the other group being cither exposed to a variety of gay sensitive, sexually positive material or allocated to a control group (in New Zealand, n = 159). At baseline, approximately 75% of both samples reporting engaging exclusively in safer sex behaviour. At follow-up, while the percentage of those practicing safer sex behaviour significantly increased to 83% in those exposed to the gay sensitive material and control, the prevalence of safer sex among those who experienced the fear based program, decreased dramatically to 47%. These findings, supported by previous research on the effects of fear, highlight the dangers of using fear based programs on the behaviour of those most at risk.