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 ( = 0.016) and for the self-perceived impact of religion on sexual health across different religious affiliations ( = 0.033) and strengths of religiosity ( = 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.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10671411PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20227075DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

strengths religiosity
28
religious affiliations
24
sexual health
20
college students
16
contraceptive usage
16
affiliations strengths
16
age contraceptive
12
religious
8
religiosity
8
sexually active
8

Similar Publications

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!