Association between First Sexual Intercourse and Sexual Violence Victimization, Symptoms of Depression, and Suicidal Behaviors among Adolescents in the United States: Findings from 2017 and 2019 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey

Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate the association between first sexual intercourse and sexual violence victimization, symptoms of depression, and suicidal ideation among sexually active adolescents in the United States. Data for this study came from the U.S. 2017 and 2019 iterations of the National Youth Risk Behavior Survey. An analytic sample of 6252 adolescents aged 14–18 years old (49.5% female) who reported ever having sexual intercourse was analyzed using Poisson regression. The outcome variables investigated in this study were sexual violence victimization, symptoms of depression, suicidal ideation, a suicide plan, and suicide attempts, and the main explanatory variables were age at first sexual intercourse and forced sexual intercourse. We also analyzed differences by gender and race. Of the 6252 adolescents who reported ever having sexual intercourse, 7.1% had their first sexual intercourse before age 13, and 14.8% experienced forced sexual intercourse. About 16% of adolescents experienced sexual violence during the past year, 42.6% reported symptoms of depression, 23.9% experienced suicidal ideation, 19.3% made a suicide plan, and 11.1% attempted suicide during the past year. In the regression analysis, early sexual intercourse was significantly and positively associated with suicidal ideation (relative risk (RR) = 1.15, 95% Confidence Interval (CI) = 1.02–1.30), suicide plan (RR = 1.18, 95% CI = 1.00–1.38), and suicide attempts (RR = 1.36, 95% CI = 1.15–1.61). Controlling for the effects of covariates, history of forced sexual intercourse was positively associated with the five outcomes examined with the relative risk ranging between 1.59 and 6.01. Findings of this study suggest that history of early or forced sexual intercourse is associated with poor mental health outcomes among adolescents and underscores the importance of developing interventions that offer psychological support in reducing the adverse impact of early sexual intercourse and forced sexual intercourse on adolescent health.

The impact of sexual violence in mid-adolescence on mental health: a UK population-based longitudinal study

“…The available evidence on the effect of sexual violence in mid-adolescence on mental health is scarce, because many studies evaluating the effects of sexual violence before adulthood have focused on adverse childhood experiences (including sexual abuse earlier in childhood 8 , 9 ), experiences of sexual violence in the university and college environment, 10 , 11 and intimate partner violence in older adolescent age groups. 12 Several studies we identified that focused on mid-adolescence—during which many individuals begin to experience increasing rates of sexual harassment and assault after puberty—cannot make assumptions on the population-level effects of sexual violence due to the use of selective samples (eg, samples recruited from sexual-assault referral centres 13 ), the examination of cross-sectional associations, 14 , 15 or the use of retrospective recollections of both the violence experienced and its perceived subsequent effect on mental health. 7 , 16 Previous studies with longitudinal examination have been limited by the use of convenience samples in some North American school settings.…”

Childhood Experiences and Psychological Distress: Can Benevolent Childhood Experiences Counteract the Negative Effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences?

“…Depression and suicidal ideation are worldwide concerns and they are the most common mental health problems (Bilsen, 2018;Perquier et al, 2021;Pozuelo et al, 2022). Existing studies indicated that 19.6-30.6% of adolescents suffered from depression (Song et al, 2008;Ibrahim et al, 2013;Gao et al, 2020), while 18-26.4% (Baiden et al, 2021;Hu et al, 2021;Mahumud et al, 2021) had suicidal ideation. In recent years, another mental problem, i.e., uncertainty stress, has attracted some attention from scholars (Holland and Wheeler, 2016), because it can arouse worse consequences and influences than life stress and study stress (Wu et al, 2020).…”

Factors Related to Sexual Intercourse Among Korean Middle and High School Students

“…In a study of adolescents in 38 countries (6), it was reported that suicide attempts and sexual relationships were related, and the same results were reported in a study of Baiden et al (36). The current study showed that sexual intercourse among adolescents was associated with problematic behaviors-such as drinking, smoking, and drug use-and psychological behaviors-such as loneliness, sadness, despair, suicidal ideation, and suicidal attempts-that could occur together (2,36). Furthermore, a Swedish study found that girls who experienced sexual intercourse at an early age had poor physical and mental health (2).…”