Sexual Communication Profiles Among Married Adults in Honduras: A Latent Profile Analysis of Attitudinal–Behavioral Configurations

Objectives The present study used a person-centered approach to identify recurrent configurations across attitudinal and communicative indicators of sexuality among married adults in Honduras, evaluate the stability and external differentiation of the retained solution, and examine its descriptive correspondence across men and women.Method Data were collected from 6,838 married adults in Honduras (M age = 34.50 years, SD = 9.47; 59.14% women) through a cross-sectional online survey using non-probabilistic digital sampling. Indicators from the Sexual Communication and Attitudes Scale were analyzed using latent profile analysis with the EEI covariance parameterization in R using mclust 6.1.3. Solutions with one to 10 profiles were compared, with 200 independent random initializations used for the five- to 10-profile solutions, together with subsample stability checks and sensitivity analyses. Sociodemographic correlates of profile membership were examined using a bias-adjusted three-step approach with Wald tests, and associations with sexual practice diversity were examined using BCH-weighted comparisons with bootstrap standard errors and Holm-corrected pairwise tests, providing external differentiation using sexual practice diversity as a distal correlate.Results Although BIC and the integrated completed likelihood (ICL) continued to favor larger solutions through 10 profiles, an eight-profile solution was retained as the most defensible balance of fit, internal stability, classification quality, class size, and interpretability, determined solely from internal statistical and substantive criteria. Profile prevalence ranged from 3.04% (Autonomy-Restrictive Communicator) to 24.64% (Expressive-Autonomous Communicator). Configurations included a globally low profile combining restricted comfort, communication, and permissiveness (Globally Restrictive Communicator, 4.81%); a profile combining comfort near the sample mean with markedly low relational communication and permissiveness near the mean (Relationally Restricted Communicator, 8.85%); a profile combining comparatively favorable comfort and relational communication near the mean with markedly restricted autonomy and permissiveness attitudes (Autonomy-Restrictive Communicator, 3.04%); a profile combining high comfort and communication with comparatively low permissiveness (Normatively Selective Communicator, 11.58%); and a profile combining high scores across all three domains (Expressive-Autonomous Communicator, 24.64%). Age, sex, and education showed significant global (omnibus) associations with profile membership; after Holm correction for multiple follow-up testing within each covariate, two individual contrasts remained significant: women showed higher relative odds than men of membership in the Autonomy-Restrictive Communicator relative to the Globally Restrictive Communicator, and increasing age was associated with lower relative odds of membership in the Expressive-Autonomous Communicator relative to the Globally Restrictive Communicator. Sexual practice diversity differed significantly across profiles (Wald χ2(7) = 495.61, p < .001), highest for the Expressive-Autonomous Communicator and lowest for the Inhibited Conservative Communicator.Conclusions An eight-profile representation provided a comparatively stable and substantively interpretable description of how comfort, relational communication, and autonomy-related attitudes combined in this sample. This representation should be understood as a defensible empirical description rather than as evidence of eight universal or uniquely defined types of sexual communication. Findings support a person-centered, configurational approach as a complement to variable-centered research on sexual communication.