While there has been a significant amount of research on teenagers’ initial sexual experiences, An Indiana University School of Medicine study is first to examine decision making changes over by abstaining but sexually active teenage girls over time.
It hopes to better explain why sexually experienced girls resume sexual activity after periods of abstinence. This may help deal with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and high school pregnancy.
The new findings were published in the March 2010 issue of Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health.
The decision making characteristics of a teen girl having sex after a period of abstinence differed according to how long she had been abstinent.
In the short term, a young woman was more likely to have sex when her relationship with her partner was good, when the girl felt good and when she was interested in having sex.
Long term, sexual interest and relationship quality were the two most important predictors of resumption of sex after a period of abstinence.
“Sexuality is an important developmental task for teens.” said study lead author assistant professor of pediatrics Mary A. Ott, M.D. “They need to go from childhood to sexually mature adulthood while remaining sexually disease free and without getting pregnant.”
“We conducted this study to better understand the factors that influenced teenage girls who became sexually active again after a period of abstinence. With this new understanding we can better help young women remain healthy and avoid unwanted pregnancy” said professor Ott, from the Indiana University School of Medicine.
Diagnosis of a STD was associated with a reduced risk of subsequent sex for a short time. However having an STD increased risk for sexual activity in the intermediate time period and was unrelated to the decision to have sex in the long run.
The switch in decision making style may reflect either relationship turmoil after diagnosis of an STD, followed by “make up” sex, hypothesize the authors. Or it may reflect adherence to Center for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations for a period of abstinence following STD treatment, followed by resumption of previous sexual activity.
“Either way, the findings suggest that counseling only about abstinence after a sexually transmitted infection is insufficient. Clinicians should anticipate resumption of sexual behavior and tailor counseling appropriately,” said Dr. Ott.
The researchers also found that, in the short term, girls who characterized themselves as irritable, angry or unhappy were unlikely to return to sexual activity after a period of abstinence. That finding contradicts anecdotal information that depressed individuals are likely to engage in sexual activity.
The researchers evaluated 354 sexually active urban teen girls for up to four and a half years between 1999 and 2006. Study participants were 14 to 17 years old and not pregnant when they enrolled. Sexual experience was not an inclusion criterion, but 81 percent of participants were sexually experienced at enrollment; most of the others had their first sexual experience during the study period.
Participants reported a total of 9,236 abstinence periods, which averaged 31 days.
“Having data from the same group of young women over such a long period of time, as they go through periods of having sex and times when they are not having sex and as they change partners, enables us to understand a complex process of motivation in a way that previous studies have not” said study senior author J. Dennis Fortenberry, M.D., professor of pediatrics. “What we have established in this study are the major factors associated with the decision to resume sex.”
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