Elsevier

Journal of Adolescent Health

Volume 40, Issue 4, April 2007, Pages 357.e1-357.e8
Journal of Adolescent Health

Original article
A Momentary Sampling Study of the Affective Experience Following Coital Events in Adolescents

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2006.10.014Get rights and content

Abstract

Purpose

To describe the affective experience following sexual intercourse among sexually active adolescents. We hypothesized that these youth would experience more positive and less negative affects following sexual intercourse than at other times in their daily lives.

Methods

Approximately every 3 waking hours, sexually active adolescents aged 15–21 years used a handheld computer to report current affect and recent sexual intercourse in response to random signals. Participants also completed a report after sexual intercourse. Affect was determined by eight states, as well as composite variables for positive and negative affect. Generalized estimating equations compared affect on reports that did and did not include sexual intercourse. Each model included average affect, affect variability (standard deviation), and significant interactions with the occurrence of sexual intercourse. Based on their distribution, outcome variables were modeled as presence/absence of affect.

Results

Sixty-seven youth completed 1385 random and 392 event reports. There were 266 unique coital reports (median 2.6/participant/week); 94% were with a main partner and 49% involved condom use. Youth were more likely to report positive affect and less likely to report negative affect when they were also reporting recent sexual intercourse, as compared to noncoital reports. In multivariate analyses, participants had greater odds of reporting well being and alertness and lower odds of reporting stress and anger following sexual intercourse compared to other times.

Conclusions

Adolescents report improvement in specific positive and negative affective states following sexual intercourse. Determining how feeling more positive and less negative after sexual intercourse may motivate or reinforce sexual intercourse will be important in understanding adolescent sexual behavior.

Section snippets

Study sample

Patients of a large adolescent clinic in an urban children’s hospital were invited by their clinical provider to participate if they were aged 15–21 years and reported penile-vaginal sexual intercourse at least once a week, on average. Sexual intercourse was the sexual behavior of interest because it affords the greatest risk of adverse outcomes and because it is a discrete, clearly defined event well suited for evaluation using MS methods. Patients who were in emotional crisis at the time of

Results

Of the 70 youth enrolled, 67 (96%) completed the study. The participants had a mean ± SD age of 18 ± 1.8 years (range, 15–21 years). The majority (76%) was female and of African American race (57%); 33% of the sample reported Hispanic or Latino ethnicity. Most participants (96%) had completed at least some high school education. More than one half of the sample (58%) had Medicaid insurance, received free care, or had no insurance; 19% did not know what kind of health insurance they had.

On the

Conclusions

In this study, adolescents reported measurable improvement in both positive and negative affective states following a coital event, compared with other times during a week. Specifically, participants had greater odds of experiencing alertness, happiness, and well being, and lower odds of experiencing anger, anxiety, and stress following sexual intercourse than at other times. Further, the findings suggest stronger effects for positive as compared to negative postcoital affect. The study used MS

Acknowledgments

This study was funded by the following: Charles A. Janeway Award, Child Health Research Center, Children’s Hospital Boston; Grant 5 K23 MH01845, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health; Harvard Medical School 50th Anniversary Program for Scholars in Medicine Priscilla and Richard Hunt Fellowship; and the LEAH Training Program, Project 5-T71MC-00009-13, Maternal and Child Health Bureau. The authors thank Carol Whalen, Ph.D., and Larry Jamner, Ph.D., University of

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