IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v18y2021i21p11295-d666124.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gender Differences in Sexual Behaviors and Their Relevance to Mental Health among High School Students with Sexual Experience in South Korea

Author

Listed:
  • Hyunlye Kim

    (Department of Nursing, College of Medicine, Chosun University, Gwangju 61452, Korea)

  • Kwang-Hi Park

    (College of Nursing, Gachon University, Incheon 21936, Korea)

  • Suin Park

    (College of Nursing, Kosin University, Busan 49267, Korea)

Abstract

We explored gender differences in sexual behavior, and their relevance to mental health among high school students in South Korea. This study was based on data from the 14th Korea Youth Risk Behavior Web-Based Survey (2018). The subjects were 2460 high school students who reported sexual experiences. Student′s t -test, ANOVA, and Rao-Scott chi-squared test were performed to identify the significance of the differences. Boys had earlier sexual debuts (Rao-Scott χ 2 = 53.55, p < 0.001), a lower frequency of using contraceptives (Rao-Scott χ 2 = 26.57, p < 0.001), and lower rates of sex education in school (Rao-Scott χ 2 = 11.20, p = 0.004). With respect to mental health factors, there was a difference in suicidality according to sexual risk behaviors, with a stronger association found in boys. In girls, there was an association between pregnancy experiences and suicidal ideation (Rao-Scott χ 2 = 9.90, p = 0.003), plans (Rao-Scott χ 2 = 17.25, p < 0.001), and attempts (Rao-Scott χ 2 = 23.11, p < 0.001). Our findings suggest differences by gender and age group in the association between sexual behavior and mental health. It is necessary to devise a sex education strategy for adolescents considering gender and early versus late adolescent development period.

Suggested Citation

  • Hyunlye Kim & Kwang-Hi Park & Suin Park, 2021. "Gender Differences in Sexual Behaviors and Their Relevance to Mental Health among High School Students with Sexual Experience in South Korea," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(21), pages 1-10, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:21:p:11295-:d:666124
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/21/11295/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/21/11295/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jianing Ren & Xinran Qi & Wenzhen Cao & Zhicheng Wang & Yueping Guo & Junjian Gaoshan & Xiao Liang & Kun Tang, 2022. "Early Sexual Initiation Is Associated with Suicide Attempts among Chinese Young People," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(7), pages 1-12, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:21:p:11295-:d:666124. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.