Religiosity and Risky Sexual Behavior Among Adolescents in Sarawak, Malaysia

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Risky sexual behavior is defined as a behavior that increases one’s risk of contracting or being infected by sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and experiencing unintended pregnancies. This study examined the relationship between religiosity and risky sexual behavior among adolescents in the state of Sarawak, Malaysia. 
 
 METHODS: The inclusion criteria included 1,146 unmarried adolescents aged between 16 and 19 years, whereby they answered a validated self-administered questionnaire using the modified Religion Scale and Risky Sexual Behavior – Unsafe Sex Scale. The analysis was restricted to respondents who reported to have had sex. 
 
 RESULTS: Overall, the response rate recorded 95% (n=1,086), whereby the prevalence of respondents who reported that they have had sex was 9.5%, n=103 (71 males, 32 females, mean age 17.82).  Descriptive results further showed that the prevalence of those who have had sex for male and female were 6.53% and 2.94%, respectively. The earliest sexual debut was revealed to be at 13 years of age. Moreover, bivariate analyses indicated a significant and negative correlation between religious practice and risky sexual behavior (r= -.23; p<.05). 
 
 CONCLUSION: The study revealed that religious adolescents are more likely to avoid risky sexual behavior. This means that religious practice may become a potential protective factor in influencing adolescents to avoid risky sexual behaviors.

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“…Penelitian mengenai isu ini pernah dilakukan oleh Hisan dan Sari (2017) dan mendapatkan hasil bahwa subjek yang tidak melakukan perilaku seks pranikah memiliki pertimbangan akan masa depan lebih tinggi dibandingkan dengan subjek yang melakukan perilaku seks bebas. Beberapa penelitian lainnya mencoba mencari tahu hubungan beberapa variabel dengan perilaku seksual bebas dan untuk mengambil kesimpulan mengenai alasan yang membuat seseorang rentan melakukan perilaku seksual berisiko antara lain: paparan pornografi (Yunengsih & Setiawan, 2021); religiusitas (Panting & Sui Mien, 2020), faktor-faktor keluarga yang didalamnya termasuk komunikasi orangtuaanak, hubungan antara orangtua-anak, pengasuhan orang tua, dan struktur keluarga (Lianawati et al, 2018;Gustina, 2017;dll) peran teman sebaya (Lianawati et al, 2018) penyalahgunaan NAPZA (Mwangi et al, 2019) pernah mengalami pelecehan seksual dan PTSD (Weiss et al, 2019) dan alasan-alasan lainnya yang tentu saja perlu adanya penelitian lanjutan.…”