Alcohol and drug abuse and risky sexual behaviours in young adult women

Abstract

Objective: To assess alcohol abuse as a predictor of risky sexual behavior among adolescents and young adult women, a high-risk population for unintended pregnancies.

Subjects: Totally 3163 adolescent and young adult women, 18–29 years, were assessed on sociodemographics, alcohol and drug use and risky sexual behaviors.

Interventions: Participants answered a structured questionnaire on their leisure habits, drug and alcohol consumption, contraception and sexual behaviors.

Results: Most of the young adult women perceive that sexuality is an important part of their life but not a main concern (77.6%) and that alcohol removes the barriers to have sex (62.3%). Additionally, 77.0% claimed that contraception had “a lot” (53.4%) and “quite” (23.6%) influence on the quality of their sexuality. However, up to a 38.4% of the interviewed women had had sex without using any contraception and 29.6% of them acknowledged that had taken alcohol and of these, 40.7% said that alcohol was responsible for not using contraception. Alcohol abuse predicted an increase in risky sexual behaviours (4.45 CI: 2.01–9.75, p < 0.0001). The effect of alcohol was independent of age.

Conclusions: These findings suggest that contraception-related behavioural interventions for young adult women should discuss the link between alcohol and sexual risk behavior.

Chinese abstract

目的：评估酒精滥用作为青少年危险性性行为及年轻成年妇女意外妊娠高风险的预测指标。

对象：对年龄在18–29岁的3163名青少年和年轻成年女性的社会人口学、酒精和药物的使用及危险性性行为进行评估。

处理：针对参与者自己的业余习惯、药物和酒精使用、避孕和性行为进行问卷调查。

结果：大多数年轻成年女性认为性行为是生活的重要部分但并不是最重视的（77.6 %）、酒精有助性行为（62.3%）。并且77%认为避孕法对她们的性生活质量有“很多”（53.4%）、“明显”（23.6%）影响。然而，调查的女性中有38.4%的人在性生活时没有采用任何避孕措施，29.6%的人承认她们喝了酒，并且这些人当中有40.7%的人认为酒精是不避孕的原因。酒精滥用预测危险性性行为增加了（4.45CI：2.01–9.75，p50.0001 ）。酒精的影响与年龄无关。

结论：这些结果显示对年轻成年女性的避孕行为的干预应该考虑酒精和性风险行为的关系。

• Alcohol abuse
• contraception
• drug consumption
• perceived risk
• sexuality

Ethics approval

The study was performed in a sample of general population and all the participants demonstrated comprehension after the explanation of the interview. The procedures in this study were approved by the Institutional Review Board at the Hospital Clinic (Barcelona, Spain).