Adolescent Sexual Activity: Links Between Relational Contextand Depressive Symptoms

摘要

Little is known about the impact of the rela-tional context of adolescent sexual activity on depressivesymptoms. The present study examined trajectories ofdepressive symptoms among 6,602 adolescents (44% male,60% White) taken from a nationally representative study(Add Health). Sexually active youth in romantic and casualrelationships were first compared to virgins and then toeach other by relational context. Longitudinal, multilevelmodels examined differences in the course of depressivesymptoms based on sexual activity separately by genderand age group (ages 12-14 and 15-18). Results indicatedthat when compared to virgins, any differences in depres-sive symptoms by relational context of sex were presentprior to youth's sexual debut. The few significant differ-ences found between youth who had sex in romanticrelationships verses those who had casual sex were presentbefore sexual initiation and not maintained over time,suggesting that casual sex in adolescence is not associatedwith long-term risks for depressive symptoms.