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‘Sexting’ discussions urged during office visit
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Adolescents who send and receive sexually explicit picture and text messages via cellphone were about seven times more likely to have already engaged in sexual activity and more likely to exhibit a “clustering of sexual risk behaviors,” according to study results published online.
Eric Rice, PhD, of the School of Social Work at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and colleagues reported that “sexting,” particularly in younger children, can have traumatic social implications, particularly if the sext is forwarded to other students. The study researchers urged clinicians to discuss sexting with adolescents and to incorporate discussions of the potential negative implications of sexting, as well as using that conversation to discuss sexual intercourse.
The researchers reported data from a probability sample during 2011 of 1,839 high school-aged students in the Los Angeles area aged 12 to 18 years. Male students represented 52% of the overall sample and 72% were Latino/Hispanic; most students were aged 14 to 17 years.
“Fifteen percent of adolescents with cellphone access reported sexting, and 54% reported knowing someone who had sent a sext,” Rice and colleagues wrote. “Adolescents whose peers sexted were more likely to sext themselves (OR=16.87, 95% CI, 9.62-29.59). Adolescents who themselves sexted were more likely to report being sexually active (OR=7.17, 95% CI, 5.01-10.25).
“We further recommend that discussion about sexting and its associated risk behavior be included in school-based sexual health curricula,” they concluded.
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