Advancing Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
 
Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health
Volume 37, Number 3, September 2005

Adolescent Partner-Type Experience: Psychosocial and Behavioral Differences

By Cynthia Rosengard, Nancy E. Adler, Jill E. Gurvey and Jonathan M. Ellen

CONTEXT: Adolescents behave differently with main and casual sexual partners. These differences in behavior may be due to how adolescents perceive main and casual partners, but may also be informed by which types of partners adolescents have had experience with.

METHODS: Data were collected in interviews with 276 sexually experienced STD clinic attendees in 1996–1998. Chi-square tests and one-way analyses of variance were conducted to compare risk and protective variables among groups with different types of partner experience (main only, casual only, main and casual). Post hoc analyses determined differences between pairs of groups.

RESULTS: Adolescents with different partner-type experiences evidenced different risk and protective factors. For example, adolescents who had had only main partners perceived a greater risk of contracting STDs from both main and casual partners than those who had had both partner types. Women in the casual-only group were the least likely to have been pregnant. Adolescents who had had main and casual partners intended a significantly shorter delay in initiating sex with a new main partner than did those in the main-only group; they also more strongly intended to have a side partner than did those who had had only main partners.

CONCLUSIONS: The design of risk reduction and prevention interventions for at-risk sexually experienced adolescents ought to consider adolescents' sexual partner-type experiences and tailor messages to capitalize on associated protective factors and address or minimize associated risk factors.

Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 2005, 37(3):141–147

DOI:10.1363/3714105







 

 
 

Cynthia Rosengard is assistant professor of medicine (research), Division of General Internal Medicine, Rhode Island Hospital, Providence. Nancy E. Adler is professor of medical psychology and director, Center for Health and Community, University of California, San Francisco. Jill E. Gurvey is programmer analyst, and Jonathan M. Ellen is associate professor of pediatrics, both at the Division of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore.