NCJ Number
224235
Journal
Journal of Youth and Adolescence Volume: 37 Issue: 9 Dated: October 2008 Pages: 1085-1096
Date Published
October 2008
Length
12 pages
Annotation
Using data from Waves I, II, and III of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), this study examined the association between the timing of an individual’s “sexual debut” (initiation of sexual activity) and depressive symptomatology in adolescence and emerging adulthood.
Abstract
The findings suggest that sexual-debut timing does not have implications for depressive symptomatology beyond the adolescent period. In bivariate analyses, pre-debut depressive symptoms were associated with earlier sexual debut among female adolescents but not male adolescents. In models that adjusted for demographic characteristics and pre-debut depressive symptoms, sexual debut was positively related to adolescent (Wave II) depressive symptomatology, but only among female adolescents less than 16 years old; however, sexual-debut timing was not linked to depressive symptomatology in young adulthood for either males or females. Add Health is a nationally representative survey of U.S. adolescents enrolled in grades 7 through 12 in the 1994-1995 school years (Wave I). Respondents who reported never having sexual intercourse at Wave I and were 18-22 years old at Wave III were included in the current study (n=5,061) . Twenty percent of respondents experienced early sexual debut (younger than age 16), and 49 percent experienced typical sexual-debut timing (ages 16-18). In order to assess depressive symptomatology at the various Waves, Add Health used a modified version of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) scale. 3 tables, 1 figure, and 52 references