Internet et sexualité chez les étudiants en médecine

Abstract

ObjectivesWe proposed to evaluate certain aspects of the sexuality of medical students and to identify the characteristics of cybersexual addicts. Materials and methodsWe conducted a descriptive and analytical study among 220 medical students at the Faculty of Medicine of Sfax (Tunisia). We excluded married participants. We used an anonymous self-administered questionnaire composed of 58 items, including the “Internet Sex Screening Test” to assess the risk of sexual cyberaddiction. Statistical analysis was performed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences software (20th version). For frequency comparison, we used the Pearson's Chi2 test and the Fischer test. For the comparison of means, we used the Student's t-test and the Mann–Witney test. The significance level was set at 0.05. ResultsOne hundred and fifteen students were included. Their mean age was 22.23 years±2.34. Most of them were female (62.6 %), registered in the second cycle (72.2 %), had an urban origin (73.9 %) and lived in the parental home (79.1 %). Their socioeconomic level was medium (82.6 %) or high (17.4 %). The main sources of sexual information were: peers (68.7 %), Internet (59.1 %), television (47 %), teachers (36.5 %), books (23.5 %) and parents (14.8 %). The participants admitted having sexual fantasies and practicing masturbation in less than half of the cases (46.1 % and 43.5 %, respectively). The majority reported not having penetrating sexual intercourse (87.8 %) or superficial ones (73.9 %). The interest for cybersex began on average at the age of 17.26 years. The use of the Internet for sexual purposes involved two-thirds of the respondents. About half of them surfed on “sex” sites (54.8 %) or consulted sexology websites (49.6 %). The mean score of ISST was 2.88 and the risk of sexual cyberaddiction concerned 8.7 % of students. The features associated with a higher risk of sexual cyberaddiction were: male sex (P<0.001), earlier age of onset of sexual interest (P<0.001), preference for a society granting sexual freedom (P<0.001), the presence of sexual fantasies (P=0.001), the practice of masturbation (P=0.002) and the practice of superficial intercourse (P=0.003) or penetrating intercourse (P<0.001). ConclusionsCybersexuality is a common activity among medical students, but its problematic use is relatively rare. Further large-scale studies would be needed, especially to explore the motivations of cybersex users and the consequences of their behavior on their offline sexuality.