Assessing reliability of early adolescent girls' reports of romantic and sexual behavior.

Increasing rates of HIV among urban adolescents have raised concerns about their participation in sexual risk behaviors. The accuracy of adolescents' sexual reports is critical to the assessment of risk, which may later guide the development of public policy, interventions, and education efforts. The data presented here are part of a larger study on a range of sexual behaviors and cognitions believed to be important regarding adolescent girls' sexual choices and decision-making. Our goal here was to assess the test-retest reliability of early adolescent girls' reports of their romantic and sexual experiences. This information will contribute to our limited information base regarding sexuality research with early adolescents. Fifty urban African American and Latina girls between the ages of 12 and 14 years were recruited from community settings around New York City. A battery of sexual behavior and sexual cognition measures was administered by interviewers at two time points separated by a 3-week interval. Results indicated that the girls were highly reliable in reporting their sexual experiences, especially those experiences related to age of first romantic and sexual milestone experiences.