↓ Skip to main content

Sexual intercourse, age of initiation and contraception among adolescents in Ireland: findings from the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) Ireland study

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Public Health, March 2018
Altmetric Badge

About this Attention Score

  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (85th percentile)
  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (71st percentile)

Mentioned by

policy
1 policy source
twitter
20 X users

Citations

dimensions_citation
53 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
280 Mendeley
You are seeing a free-to-access but limited selection of the activity Altmetric has collected about this research output. Click here to find out more.
Title
Sexual intercourse, age of initiation and contraception among adolescents in Ireland: findings from the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) Ireland study
Published in
BMC Public Health, March 2018
DOI 10.1186/s12889-018-5217-z
Pubmed ID
Authors

Honor Young, Lorraine Burke, Saoirse Nic Gabhainn

Abstract

The need to tackle sexual health problems and promote positive sexual health has been acknowledged in Irish health policy. Young people's sexual behaviour however remains under-researched with limited national data available. This study presents the first nationally representative and internationally comparable data on young people's sexual health behaviours in Ireland. Self-complete questionnaire data were collected from 4494 schoolchildren aged 15-18 years as part of a broader examination of health behaviour and their context. The prevalence of sexual initiation, very early sexual initiation (< 14 years) and non-condom use at last intercourse are reported and used as outcomes in separate multilevel logistic regression models examining associations between sociodemographic characteristics, lifestyle characteristics and young people's sexual behaviours. Overall, 25.7% of boys and 21.2% of girls were sexually initiated. Older age was consistently predictive of initiation for both boys and girls, as were alcohol, tobacco and cannabis involvement, living in poorer neighbourhoods and having good communication with friends. Involvement in music and drama was protective. Very early sexual initiation (< 14 years) was reported by 22.8% of sexually initiated boys and 13.4% of sexually initiated girls, and was consistently associated with rural living, cannabis involvement and bullying others for both. Boys' very early initiation was predicted by alcohol involvement, receiving unhealthy food from parents and taking medication for psychological symptoms, whereas better communication with friends and more experience of negative health symptoms were protective. Girls' very early initiation was predicted by being bullied and belonging to a non-Traveller community, whereas taking medication for physical symptoms and attending regular health checks was protective. Condom use was reported by 80% of sexually initiated students at last intercourse. Boys' condom use was associated with older age, higher family affluence, bullying others, more frequent physical activity and health protective behaviours. For girls, condom use was predicted by belonging to a non-Traveller community, healthy food consumption, higher quality of life and being bullied, whereas taking medication for physical and psychological symptoms was associated with non-condom use. These nationally representative research findings highlight the importance of focusing on young people as a distinct population subgroup with unique influences on their sexual health requiring targeted interventions and policy.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 20 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 280 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 280 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Bachelor 31 11%
Student > Master 29 10%
Researcher 22 8%
Student > Ph. D. Student 18 6%
Student > Doctoral Student 18 6%
Other 40 14%
Unknown 122 44%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 41 15%
Nursing and Health Professions 37 13%
Psychology 23 8%
Social Sciences 17 6%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 4 1%
Other 23 8%
Unknown 135 48%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 15. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 10 November 2020.
All research outputs
#2,420,119
of 25,347,980 outputs
Outputs from BMC Public Health
#2,832
of 16,997 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#49,512
of 339,894 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Public Health
#91
of 315 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,347,980 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 90th percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 16,997 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 14.6. This one has done well, scoring higher than 83% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 339,894 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 85% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 315 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 71% of its contemporaries.