[Contraceptive self efficacy in male and female adolescents: validation of the French version of the Levinson scale].

The social learning theory of Bandura leads us to believe that contraceptive self-efficacy supports the adoption and the maintenance of effective contraceptive behaviours during the teenage years. Levinson has developed a validated measure of this concept which consists of an 18-item scale for sexually active girls. However there are no such scales in French or for sexually active boys. The health promotion program, entitled SEXPRIMER, which aims at reducing teenage pregnancy, has incorporated the French version of the Levinson scale, the adapted boy's version and the validity studies. A 15-item scale for girls and a 14-item scale for boys with respective reliability coefficients of .78 and .71 resulted from this program. A logistic regression analysis shows the predictive value of the measures in regard to contraceptive behaviours. According to Levinson's more recent studies, results indicate that new research on the factor matrix of the scale are relevant.