Researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine have offered new insights into why sexually experienced girls resume sexual activity after periods of abstinence.
This information may help tailor effective counselling to prevent sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and pregnancy in high-school girls and beyond.
Characteristics associated with the risk of a teenage girl having sex after a period of abstinence differed according to how long she had been abstinent.
In the short term, a young woman was more likely to have sex when her relationship with her partner was good, when the girl felt good, and when she was interested in having sex.
Long term, sexual interest and relationship quality were the two most important predictors of resumption of sex after a period of abstinence.
"Sexuality is an important developmental task for teens," said the study's first author, Dr Mary A Ott. "They need to go from childhood to sexually mature adulthood while remaining sexually disease-free and without getting pregnant.
"We conducted this study to better understand the factors that influenced teenage girls who became sexually active again after a period of abstinence. With this new understanding, we can better help young women remain healthy and avoid unwanted pregnancy."
Diagnosis of an STD was associated with a reduced risk of subsequent sex for a short time. However, having an STD increased the risk for sexual activity in the intermediate time period and was unrelated to the decision to have sex in the long run.
The researchers predicted that the switch may reflect either relationship turmoil after diagnosis of an STD, followed by 'make-up' sex, or may reflect adherence to Centres for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations for a period of abstinence following STD treatment, followed by resumption of previous sexual activity.
"Either way, the findings suggest that counselling only about abstinence after a sexually transmitted infection is insufficient," said Ott. "Clinicians should anticipate resumption of sexual behaviour and tailor counselling appropriately."
The researchers also found that, in the short term, girls who characterised themselves as irritable, angry, or unhappy were unlikely to return to sexual activity after a period of abstinence.
The finding contradicts anecdotal information that depressed individuals are likely to engage in sexual activity.
The researchers evaluated 354 sexually active urban teenage girls for up to four and a half years between 1999 and 2006. Participants reported a total of 9,236 periods of abstinence, which averaged 31 days.
"Having data from the same group of young women over such a long period of time, as they go through periods of having sex and times when they are not having sex and as they change partners, enables us to understand a complex process of motivation in a way that previous studies have not," said the study's senior author, Dr J Dennis Fortenberry. "What we have established in this study are the major factors associated with the decision to resume sex."
The findings have been published in the latest issue of Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health.
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