Social Media Usage Behavior and Sexual Intercourse among Thai Adolescents
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Abstract
Background: Thai adolescents tend to engage in sexual risk behavior; furthermore, social media usage behavior is a significant factor linked to sexual intercourse in this group of people.
Objective: This study aimed to examine the social media usage behavior and to identify the factors associated with sexual intercourse among Thai adolescents.
Materials and Method: This research was a cross-sectional study. A multistage random sampling was used to recruit 1,321 adolescents from five universities throughout Thailand. Data were collected by an online questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression at a 95% confidence interval of the odds ratio were used to analyze the data.
Results: The results revealed that 99.8% of university students had access to social media with an average usage of 7.2 hours per day, 72.9% had access to sexual media, and 27.6% had had sexual intercourse. The factors related to sexual intercourse were the access to social media more than six hours per day (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]=1.48; 95%CI=1.14-1.91), access to uncensored pornographic video clips (AOR=2.05; 95%CI=1.37-3.10), pornographic video sharing (AOR=1.83; 95%CI=1.10-3.05), access to pornographic videos along with their partners. (AOR=4.31; 95%CI=2.96-6.26), searching for sexual information online (AOR=1.61; 95%CI=1.09-2.40), and searching for STDs/AIDS prevention (AOR=1.60; 95%CI=1.06-2.43).
Conclusion: The results proved that the access to social media were significantly associated with sexual intercourse in adolescents. The findings suggested that stakeholders should promote innovative strategies to enhance adolescents’ skills in the access to social media, specifically regarding sexual information and STDs/AIDS prevention.
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References
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