Citation

Pierre N, Shrier LA, Emans SJ, DuRant R. J. Adolesc. Health 1998; 23(6): 364-369.

Affiliation

Division of Adolescent/Young Adult Medicine, Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1998, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

9870330

Abstract

The hypothesis that adolescent males who cause a pregnancy are more likely to have been victims of forced sexual contact and to have engaged in health risk and problem behaviors in the recent past than their sexually active counterparts who have not been involved in a pregnancy was investigated through use of a subset of data from the Massachusetts (US) 1995 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. 99 (12%) of the 824 sexually active male survey respondents reported having caused a pregnancy. A history of forced sexual contact was reported by 8.1%. Among those acknowledging forced sexual conduct, 36.4% had caused a pregnancy; of those without such a history, only 9.4% were involved in a pregnancy (p 0.00001). In addition, males who were involved in a pregnancy reported a greater likelihood of engaging in 16 health risk and problem behaviors in the previous 1, 3, and 12 months than those not involved in a pregnancy. Multiple logistic regression analysis identified 5 significant, independent predictors of having impregnated a female adolescent: number of sex partners in the previous 3 months (adjusted odds ratio (OR), 1.43; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.25-1.65); history of forced sexual contact (OR, 3.56; 95% CI, 1.79-7.09); carrying weapons on school property (OR, 1.39; 95% CI, 1.18-1.64); cigarettes smoked/day (OR, 1.22; 95% CI, 1.08-1.38); and condom nonuse at last intercourse (OR, 1.80; 95% CI, 1.06-3.02). This model correctly classified 89.9% of sexually active male students who had been involved in a pregnancy. These findings suggest a need to screen sexually active males for these risk factors, especially a history of forced sexual contact, as part of interventions aimed at preventing adolescent pregnancy.

Language: en