title: Urban adolescents and sexual risk taking.
abstract: The paper analyzes socio-cultural and psychosocial factors affecting sexual activities and related risk-taking behaviors in Croatian high-school students. It attempts to determine the correlates of sexual activity, early sexual initiation, the number of sexual partners, and the use of contraceptives and condoms. Due to the gender-specific trajectories of sexual socialization and initiation, all the analyses were carried out separately for female and male students. The results point out gender-specific structure of adolescent sexual risk-taking, clustering of risk-taking activities, and the habitual character of sexual risk-taking. These findings should be instrumental for the development of a comprehensive school-based sex education curriculum that Croatia lacks.
authors.affiliation: Department of Reproductive Health, Children's Hospital Zagreb, School of Medicine, University of Zagreb, Croatia.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Hirsl-Hećej
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Stulhofer
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior; D000328:Adult; D017523:Croatia; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012309:Risk-Taking; D012736:Sex Education; D012725:Sexual Behavior; D012924:Social Conditions; D014505:Urban Population