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An Analysis of the Impact of Religious Affiliation and Strength of Religiosity on Sexual Health Practices of Sexually Active Female College Students

Despite great strides in the development of contraceptive technologies, the United States has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the world. Religion and associated values may shape the sexual health behaviors of college students, as prior studies have aimed to determine how social factors ma...

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Autores principales: Glazer, Emily, Valdez, Emma, DeBlauw, Justin A., Ives, Stephen J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10671411/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37998306
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20227075
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author Glazer, Emily
Valdez, Emma
DeBlauw, Justin A.
Ives, Stephen J.
author_facet Glazer, Emily
Valdez, Emma
DeBlauw, Justin A.
Ives, Stephen J.
author_sort Glazer, Emily
collection PubMed
description Despite great strides in the development of contraceptive technologies, the United States has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the world. Religion and associated values may shape the sexual health behaviors of college students, as prior studies have aimed to determine how social factors may influence the use of contraception amongst college students. Thus, we sought to examine the differences in current contraceptive methods and the age of first contraceptive usage among sexually active female college students with different religious affiliations and strengths of religiosity. It was hypothesized that there would be no difference in current contraceptive methods among different religious affiliations and strengths of religions and that there would be a difference in the age of first contraceptive usage among different religious affiliations and strengths of religiosity. Two hundred and twenty-four college-aged females completed a 20-question survey about sexual health and religious practices. Chi-squared tests were implemented to determine the frequencies of responses across religious affiliations and strengths of religiosity. Significant differences in the frequency of responses for the age of first contraceptive usage were observed across different strengths of religiosity (p = 0.016) and for the self-perceived impact of religion on sexual health across different religious affiliations (p = 0.033) and strengths of religiosity (p = 0.005). All other differences were found not to be statistically significant. It was determined that increased strengths of religiosity resulted in delayed onset of contraceptive usage and that both different religious affiliations and greater strengths of religiosity lead to different self-perceived impacts of religion on sexual health despite low levels of current practice.
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spelling pubmed-106714112023-11-17 An Analysis of the Impact of Religious Affiliation and Strength of Religiosity on Sexual Health Practices of Sexually Active Female College Students Glazer, Emily Valdez, Emma DeBlauw, Justin A. Ives, Stephen J. Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Despite great strides in the development of contraceptive technologies, the United States has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the world. Religion and associated values may shape the sexual health behaviors of college students, as prior studies have aimed to determine how social factors may influence the use of contraception amongst college students. Thus, we sought to examine the differences in current contraceptive methods and the age of first contraceptive usage among sexually active female college students with different religious affiliations and strengths of religiosity. It was hypothesized that there would be no difference in current contraceptive methods among different religious affiliations and strengths of religions and that there would be a difference in the age of first contraceptive usage among different religious affiliations and strengths of religiosity. Two hundred and twenty-four college-aged females completed a 20-question survey about sexual health and religious practices. Chi-squared tests were implemented to determine the frequencies of responses across religious affiliations and strengths of religiosity. Significant differences in the frequency of responses for the age of first contraceptive usage were observed across different strengths of religiosity (p = 0.016) and for the self-perceived impact of religion on sexual health across different religious affiliations (p = 0.033) and strengths of religiosity (p = 0.005). All other differences were found not to be statistically significant. It was determined that increased strengths of religiosity resulted in delayed onset of contraceptive usage and that both different religious affiliations and greater strengths of religiosity lead to different self-perceived impacts of religion on sexual health despite low levels of current practice. MDPI 2023-11-17 /pmc/articles/PMC10671411/ /pubmed/37998306 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20227075 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Glazer, Emily
Valdez, Emma
DeBlauw, Justin A.
Ives, Stephen J.
An Analysis of the Impact of Religious Affiliation and Strength of Religiosity on Sexual Health Practices of Sexually Active Female College Students
title An Analysis of the Impact of Religious Affiliation and Strength of Religiosity on Sexual Health Practices of Sexually Active Female College Students
title_full An Analysis of the Impact of Religious Affiliation and Strength of Religiosity on Sexual Health Practices of Sexually Active Female College Students
title_fullStr An Analysis of the Impact of Religious Affiliation and Strength of Religiosity on Sexual Health Practices of Sexually Active Female College Students
title_full_unstemmed An Analysis of the Impact of Religious Affiliation and Strength of Religiosity on Sexual Health Practices of Sexually Active Female College Students
title_short An Analysis of the Impact of Religious Affiliation and Strength of Religiosity on Sexual Health Practices of Sexually Active Female College Students
title_sort analysis of the impact of religious affiliation and strength of religiosity on sexual health practices of sexually active female college students
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10671411/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37998306
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20227075
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