Depression, risky sex behavior linked in African-American youth
From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:
A new study from the Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center and Brown Medical School reveals that African American teens with symptoms of depression are more than four times likely to engage in risky sexual behavior (i.e. not wear condoms).
It concludes that depressive symptoms (feeling lonely, feeling blue, feelings of worthlessness etc.) can indicate future sexual risk.
Four hundred and fifteen African American adolescents and young adults (15--21 years of age) from Atlanta and Providence, who had had unprotected sex within the past ninety days, participated in this study.
They were asked about the number times they'd had unsafe sex in the past ninety days, and about their particular attitudes concerning condom use (e.g. are they pleasurable/unpleasurable).
The odds that African American adolescents who reported depressive symptoms at baseline would report inconsistent condom use at six-month follow-up was approximately four times greater than that of their peers who did not report depressive symptoms, the study reports.
The authors conclude that psychosocial context is therefore relevant to all adolescents' sexual risk and should be incorporated into adolescent HIV risk assessments and prevention interventions.
"We also found that older adolescents and females were less likely to use condoms consistently and certain contextual factors, such as less pleasurable expectations about condom use, and living with a partner also heightened the risk of HIV," says Brown.
As a result, the authors say that clinicians should assess for depression symptoms in African American adolescent patients as an indicator of future sexual risk.
Bradley Hospital, located in Providence, RI, is a teaching hospital for Brown Medical School and ranks in the top third of private hospitals receiving funding from the National Institutes of Health.
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