Concordance of Sexual and Contraceptive Behavior among Sex Partners and Predictors of Discordant Reports

Daniel H. Klepinger, Battelle Centers for Public Health Research and Evaluation
John O.G. Billy, Battelle Centers for Public Health Research and Evaluation
William R. Grady, Battelle Centers for Public Health Research and Evaluation

We examine concordance/discordance in self-reported sexual behavior and contraceptive use of married, cohabiting and dating couples, and factors associated with discordance. Unlike much prior work, our results are based on a large sample representative of people in four metropolitan areas. We find only fair to moderate congruence in partners’ reports compared to higher levels of agreement reported in studies using small convenience samples. We also find relatively few factors that predict discordance, and the ones that do (women’s education, race, and sex role ideology) differ from previously published results. Importantly, despite significant discordance in reports, means of reported behaviors show little gender difference, suggesting that average reported behavior by either gender provides a fairly accurate description of a couple’s behavior. Moreover, the lack of significant predictors of discordance suggests that valid models for identifying predictors of specific sexual or contraceptive behaviors can be obtained from the reports of either partner.