• Online Features  This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Reply to article  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Citing articles on Web of Science (5)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Topic Collections  • Pediatrics  • Adolescent Medicine  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Susan H. Gray, MD; S. Bryn Austin, ScD; Bin Huang, PhD; A. Lindsay Frazier, MSc, MD; Alison E. Field, ScD; Jessica A. Kahn, MD, MPH

Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2008;162(1):55-59.

Objective  To determine whether a new scale measuring beliefs about postponing sexual initiation (PSI) predicts sexual initiation and whether the association between PSI and sexual initiation is mediated by intention to initiate sexual intercourse.

Design  Prospective cohort study.

Setting  The Growing Up Today Study, a longitudinal cohort study of adolescents.

Participants  A total of 11 448 adolescents aged 12 to 17 years who reported in 1999 that they had never had sexual intercourse.

Main Exposure  Beliefs and attitudes about PSI measured in 1999 (12-item scale, Cronbach  = 0.86). Higher PSI scale scores indicated stronger beliefs about postponing sex.

Outcome Measure  Sexual intercourse reported on the 2000 survey.

Results  The mean (SD) age of participants was 14.3 (1.5) years, and 94.4% were white. Of the participants, 7.5% of boys and 10.1% of girls initiated sexual intercourse between 1999 and 2000. The PSI scale score was inversely associated with intention to initiate sex and with sexual initiation in boys and girls (P < .001 for both). Intention to initiate sex was positively associated with sexual initiation (P < .001). In multivariate models, PSI scale scores were inversely associated with sexual intercourse initiation in boys (odds ratio, 0.90 for a 1-U increase in PSI scale score; 95% confidence interval, 0.87-0.93; P < .001) and girls (odds ratio, 0.91; 95% confidence interval, 0.89-0.93; P < .001). The strength of the association decreased when intention to initiate sexual intercourse was added to both models.

Conclusion  A new scale measuring beliefs and attitudes about PSI predicted sexual intercourse initiation in the next year, and intention to initiate sex mediated this association.

Author Affiliations: Department of Pediatrics, Boston Medical Center and Boston University School of Medicine (Dr Gray), Division of Young Adult and Adolescent Medicine, Department of Medicine, Children's Hospital Boston (Drs Austin and Field), Harvard Medical School, and Channing Laboratory, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School (Drs Austin, Frazier, and Field), Boston, Massachusetts; and Center for Epidemiology and Biostatistics (Dr Huang) and Division of Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics (Dr Kahn), Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, Ohio.

CiteULike    Connotea    Delicious    Digg    Facebook    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Adolescent Sexual Abstinence: A Test of an Integrative Theoretical Framework
Buhi et al.
Health Educ Behav 2011;38:63-79.
ABSTRACT