Religiousness and sexual responsibility in adolescent girls.

Abstract

To investigate a potential association between religiousness and sexual responsibility in a nationally representative sample of adolescent girls. Subjects were 3356 adolescent girls (mean age 15.97 years, SD = 1.77; 59.4% Euro-American, 23.3% African-American, 6.0% Hispanic, and 11.4% of other ethnic backgrounds) from the Wave I, In-Home section of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health Study) who responded to items on four dimensions of religiousness (frequent attendance of religious events, personal conservatism, personal devotion, and religious denomination) and three dimensions of sexual responsibility (sexual activity, perception of risk in unprotected intercourse, and birth control use). Data were analyzed using a series of regression analyses with religiousness as the predictor and sexual responsibility as the outcome. Personal devotion was positively associated with fewer sexual partners outside a romantic relationship. Frequent attendance of religious events was positively associated with greater perception of risk of contracting human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or pregnancy from unprotected intercourse, greater foresight of suffering from HIV or pregnancy, and a responsible and planned use of birth control. Personal conservatism was positively associated with unprotected sex. Sexual responsibility was positively associated with personal devotion and frequent attendance of religious events but inversely associated with personal conservatism.