Hanneke De Graaf, Mirthe Verbeek, Marieke Van den Borne, Suzanne Meijer
Abstract
Sexually developing adolescents and emerging adults face sexual health risks as well as potentially negative outcomes of online sexual behaviors. The goal of this study was to describe three categories of sexual risk behavior: (1) behavior related to STI/HIV, (2) behavior related to unplanned pregnancy, and (3) online sexual risk behavior. In addition, we investigated whether these behaviors are actually related to negative (health) outcomes. For this purpose, we used data from a Dutch probability survey: "Sex under the age of 25." Adolescents and emerging adults aged 12 through 24 (8,053 boys and 12,447 girls) completed a digital questionnaire, including measures of the risk of STI/HIV and pregnancy, online sexual behavior and non-consensual sex. Chi-square tests and logistic regressions were used to test for gender and age differences and compute associations between risk behavior and negative outcomes. The results showed that the risk of unplanned pregnancy is low in the Netherlands. It seems that adolescents and emerging adults are less aware of the risk of STI/HIV than of the risk of pregnancy. About 11% of the participants had had more than one partner in the last 6 months and had not used condoms consistently with their last partner, and these participants had a 3.56 times higher likelihood of ever being diagnosed with an STI. Although many young people stop using condoms with their partner after a while, most of them did not get tested for STIs. More emerging adults (aged 18-24) engage in sexting (sending personal nude pictures and sex videos to others), but the chance that these images are shared with other people than the intended recipient is higher among adolescents (aged 12-17). The results of this study can guide professionals working in sex education and sexual health services to focus their efforts on the risk behaviors in the Netherlands that deserve most attention.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 6. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 01 April 2018.
All research outputs
#6,654,477
of 26,367,306 outputs
Outputs from Frontiers in Public Health
#2,735
of 14,728 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#106,206
of 354,924 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Frontiers in Public Health
#52
of 115 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 26,367,306 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 74th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 14,728 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 10.9. This one has done well, scoring higher than 81% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 354,924 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 70% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 115 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 54% of its contemporaries.
