The Relationship Between Early Sexual Debut and Psychosocial Outcomes: A Longitudinal Study of Dutch Adolescents
Submitted on Saturday, 30 January 2010
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Abstract In a longitudinal dataset of 470 Dutch adolescents, the current study examined the ways in which early sexual initiation was
related to subsequent attachment, self-perception, internalizing problems, and externalizing problems. For male adolescents,
analyses revealed general attachment to mother and externalizing problems at Wave 1 to predict to early transition at Wave
2. However, there was no differential change in these psychosocial factors over time for early initiators of sexual intercourse
and their non-initiating peers. For female adolescents, the model including psychosocial factors at Wave 1 did not predict
to sexual initiation at Wave 2. However, univariate repeated measures analyses revealed early initiators to have significantly
larger increases in self-concept and externalizing problems than their non-initiating female peers. While the difference between
female early initiators and non-initiators were statistically significant, the mean levels of problem behaviors were very
low. The findings suggest that, contrary to previous research, early sexual initiation does not seem to be clustered with
problem behaviors for this sample of Dutch adolescents.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Category Original Paper
- DOI 10.1007/s10508-009-9590-7
- Authors
- Wadiya Udell, University of Washington Bothell Department of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Box 358511 18115 Campus Way NE Bothell WA 98011 USA
- Theo Sandfort, New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies New York NY USA
- Ellen Reitz, Utrecht University Faculty of Social Sciences in the Research Centre Psychosocial Development in Context Utrecht The Netherlands
- Henny Bos, University of Amsterdam Department of Education, Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences Amsterdam The Netherlands
- Maja Dekovic, Utrecht University Faculty of Social Sciences in the Research Centre Psychosocial Development in Context Utrecht The Netherlands
- Journal Archives of Sexual Behavior
- Online ISSN 1573-2800
- Print ISSN 0004-0002
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