title: Vulnerable adolescent girls: opposite-sex relationships.
abstract: This interview-based study compares the opposite-sex relationships of 50 girls, aged 15-16, identified as being at risk for difficulties in early adult partnerships, with 50 girls of the same age from an inner-city school. The high-risk girls had begun solo-dating earlier than the school girls, were more likely to have had a sexual relationship, to have had more sexual partners, to have been pregnant, and to have had a child. A third of the girls in both groups were solo-dating at the time of the interview. In contrast to the school girls, the high-risk girls attached a prominence and permanence to their current dating relationships, which already bore the hallmarks of later unsupportive partnerships.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, Denmark Hill, London, U.K.
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Pawlby
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mills
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Quinton
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior; D000328:Adult; D003380:Courtship; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D010379:Peer Group; D011247:Pregnancy; D011253:Pregnancy in Adolescence; D012307:Risk Factors; D012737:Sex Factors; D012747:Sexual Partners; D012930:Social Dominance; D012944:Social Support; D012947:Social Work / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013334:Students; D014505:Urban Population