Dating, Sexual Activity, and Well-Being in Italian Adolescents

Abstract

Associations among dating, sexual activity, gender, and adjustment were investigated in 2,273 Italian adolescents (54% female, ages 14 to 19 years) attending public high schools. After controlling for age and type of school attended, both being in a dating relationship and being male were associated with less alienation, more positive views of the self, and higher general expectations for success. Sexual activity interacted with both gender and dating status in predicting feelings of depression. For boys, there were no differences between youth who were sexually active and youth who were not; however, sexually active girls had higher levels of depressive symptoms than girls who were not sexually active. Among youth who were not sexually active, there were small differences between daters and nondaters; among sexually active youth, daters had lower levels of depression than nondaters. Gender differences in adolescents' experience of dating and sexual relationships and implications for adjustment are discussed.

Factores de riesgo relacionados con la salud sexual en los jóvenes europeos

“…Tras la lectura de los resúmenes seleccionados, se excluyeron 223 artículos más por no cumplir alguno de los criterios de inclusión. La muestra final de los estudios publicados en revistas contuvo 21 artículos sobre 17 estudios diferentes [6][7][8][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33] .…”

“…También debemos ser prudentes a la hora de generalizar estos resultados a toda la población de jóvenes debido a que algunos estudios se llevaron a cabo en muestras de conveniencia, que pueden ser poco representativas de la población general y no permiten generalizar sus conclusiones a la población de referencia 15,20,23,24,40 . Sin embargo, el objetivo de esta revisión no es dar recomendaciones precisas sobre Salud Sexual sino describir, de un modo general, los conocimientos, actitudes y prácticas sexuales de los jóvenes europeos.…”

Expanding the Scope of a Dynamic Perspective on Positive Adolescent Sexual Development

“…Greater attention to the cascading role of meaning-making may help to make sense of the mixed patterns of association that have been detected between sexual experience and adolescent well-being, with some studies showing greater happiness and Human Development 2014;57:292-304 DOI: 10.1159/000368280 302 Diamond self-esteem among more sexually experienced girls [Horne & Zimmer-Gembeck, 2005] and others showing the opposite [Ciairano, Bonino, Kliewer, Miceli, & Jackson, 2006]. The subjective quality and interpretation of youths' experiences may prove to be the key unmeasured variable.…”

Illegal yet developmentally normative: a descriptive analysis of young, urban adolescents’ dating and sexual behaviour in Cape Town, South Africa

“…Young adolescents’ sexual behaviour is of particular concern given the myriad adverse correlates associated with early sexual debut, including having unprotected sex, having multiple sexual partners, STI and HIV infection [8-13], early pregnancy [14], and a host of risk behaviours and social and emotional difficulties [15] including alcohol use, delinquency, school problems, and (among girls) depressive symptoms [4,16,17]. In sub Saharan Africa, young adolescent girls have higher rates of HIV prevalence than adolescent boys [18-20].…”

“…Sexuality is expressed and experienced in various ways in different relationship contexts [5,16,27]. Although it is assumed that dating relationships are the primary venue for sexual exploration [28,29], sexual exploration may also occur individually (e.g., masturbation), within non-dating relationships, or as casual encounters.…”