Version 1
: Received: 25 June 2024 / Approved: 26 June 2024 / Online: 27 June 2024 (06:14:53 CEST)
How to cite:
Gordon-Strachan, G.; Fox, H. K.; Harrison, A.; Grant, A.; McFarlane, S. R. Factors Associated With Sexual Initiation Amongst Adolescents 10–15 Years in Jamaica. Preprints2024, 2024061833. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202406.1833.v1
Gordon-Strachan, G.; Fox, H. K.; Harrison, A.; Grant, A.; McFarlane, S. R. Factors Associated With Sexual Initiation Amongst Adolescents 10–15 Years in Jamaica. Preprints 2024, 2024061833. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202406.1833.v1
Gordon-Strachan, G.; Fox, H. K.; Harrison, A.; Grant, A.; McFarlane, S. R. Factors Associated With Sexual Initiation Amongst Adolescents 10–15 Years in Jamaica. Preprints2024, 2024061833. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202406.1833.v1
APA Style
Gordon-Strachan, G., Fox, H. K., Harrison, A., Grant, A., & McFarlane, S. R. (2024). Factors Associated With Sexual Initiation Amongst Adolescents 10–15 Years in Jamaica. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202406.1833.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Gordon-Strachan, G., Andriene Grant and Shelly R McFarlane. 2024 "Factors Associated With Sexual Initiation Amongst Adolescents 10–15 Years in Jamaica" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202406.1833.v1
Abstract
Jamaica has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rate and therefore identifying the context of adolescent sexual and reproductive health is important, especially since there is paucity of research on preadolescents in the Jamaican context. The study was a nationally representative cross-sectional, interviewer administered, school-based survey of 10 -15 year olds. Summary statistics of the demographics and bivariate analyses were performed to assess the association of sexual initiation and given risk and resiliency factors. 1,422(47.4%) males, 1,581 (52.6%) females, mean age (SD) 12.5 (1.6) years were surveyed. Mean age of first sex was 11.0 (±2.5) years. Factors significantly with sexual initiation were, female sex (OR 0.17; 95% CI 0.12-0.23), caring relationships inside the home (OR 0.85; 95%CI 0.83-0.97) rare church attendance (OR1.36; 95%CI1.0-1.8), age (OR 1.75; 95%CI1.6-1.9) and community disorganization (OR 1.02 95% CI 1.01-1.07). Sexual initiation of early adolescents is positively influenced by environmental factors such as family connectedness and religious involvement. The negative correlates are societal risk factors such as community disorganization. Empowerment through learned sexual negotiation skills, should be incorporated into the education programme of pre-adolescents to facilitate adolescents embracing their intrinsic power to delay sexual debut and if sexually active to insist on condom use.
Keywords
adolescents; sexual initiation; resiliency factors; risk factors
Subject
Public Health and Healthcare, Public Health and Health Services
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
