CONSTRUCTION OF THE SEXUAL VULNERABILITY INDEX FOR TRANS WOMEN

Abstract

Objective: To construct an index to determine the sexual vulnerability of trans women. Materials and Methods:
Mixed study conducted between 2020 and 2021, which in its first phase used content analysis for texts describing the basic concepts of vulnerability, social vulnerability and risk. This was supported by accounts from focus groups and interviews with 14 transgender women to generate the theoretical construct of sexual
vulnerability of transgender women. For the second phase, from the information provided by 417 transgender women from the cities of Bogotá and Cali, who participated in the study “Vulnerability and HIV Prevalence in Transgender Women in three cities of Colombia: Bogota, Medellin and Santiago de Cali - 2019”, variables were selected to be part of an exploratory factor analysis to construct the preliminary version of the index. Results: The sexual vulnerability risk index of transgender women was based on 3 factors: social support, sexual practices, and health care. The index consisted of 10 questions scored as 0 or 1, with higher scores indicating a higher risk of sexual vulnerability. Conclusions: Sexual vulnerability is a phenomenon based on factors which are specific to the trans experience and it is influenced by the characteristics of the context in which the person lives. The constructed index has good internal consistency (ordinal alpha 0.90) and shows concordance between the theoretical model of the qualitative phase and the results of the exploratory factor analysis.