Department of Community Health Sciences, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario L2S 3A1, Canada.
J Sex Res. 2011 Sep;48(5):450-60. doi: 10.1080/00224499.2010.509892. Epub 2011 May 24.
Past literature has provided conflicting evidence for the association between adolescent sexual intercourse and depressive symptomatology. Whereas some studies conclude that sexually active youth may be at risk for depression, others provide contrary results. Thus, it is unclear as to whether depression results directly from coitus or if this relationship is explained by other factors-that is, there may be biological, psychological, or sociological predictors of both depressive symptomatology and early sexual intercourse. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health dataset, depressive symptomatology in adolescents over a seven-year time period was analyzed. The final sample (n = 6,510) was comprised of 49.35% male (n = 3,213) and 50.65% female (n = 3,297) participants. Although an earlier age of first coitus was predictive of future depressive symptoms, both variables appear to be concomitant outcomes of the biopsychosocial process. Thus, although one may be able to use early coitus as a marker for subsequent depressive symptomatology, it does not appear to occur because of early sexual intercourse. Furthermore, the reverse relationship was not found to be significant in this study-that is, higher levels of previous depressive symptomatology did not predict an earlier age of first sexual intercourse in adolescents.
过去的文献提供了相互矛盾的证据，证明青少年性行为与抑郁症状之间存在关联。一些研究得出结论，性活跃的年轻人可能有患抑郁症的风险，而另一些研究则得出了相反的结果。因此，不清楚抑郁症是否直接由性交引起，或者这种关系是否由其他因素解释，即可能存在生物、心理或社会学因素，同时预测抑郁症状和早期性行为。本研究使用了全国青少年健康纵向研究数据集，分析了青少年在七年时间内的抑郁症状。最终样本（n=6510）由 49.35%的男性（n=3213）和 50.65%的女性（n=3297）组成。尽管初次性行为的年龄较早与未来的抑郁症状有关，但这两个变量似乎都是生物心理社会过程的伴随结果。因此，虽然可以将早期的性行为作为后续抑郁症状的标志，但这似乎并不是因为早期的性行为导致的。此外，在本研究中，没有发现相反的关系具有统计学意义，即青少年以前的抑郁症状水平较高并不预示着他们初次性行为的年龄较早。
