title: Tracing the roots of early sexual debut among adolescents in psychiatric care.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To identify the most important social and personal characteristics related to early sexual debut among troubled teenagers.
  
  
  METHODS
  One hundred ninety-eight youths aged 12-19 years were recruited from outpatient mental health clinics and completed self-reports and interviews about their age of sexual debut; family, peer, and partner relationships (e.g., parental hostile control, negative peer influence, need for intimacy); and personal characteristics (e.g., achievement motivation, externalizing problems). Broad-band (externalizing, internalizing) and narrow-band (depression/anxiety, delinquency) psychopathology was assessed with the Youth Self-Report and Child Behavior Checklist.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Optimal Data Analysis was used to generate a classification tree model to identify variables associated with whether or not youths initiated oral, vaginal, and/or anal sexual activity before or after age 14. Three social context variables (parental hostile control, negative and positive peer influence) and one personal characteristic (externalizing problems) correctly classified 87.4% of teenagers as initiating sexual activity at < or =14 or >14 years of age.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Parental behavior and peer influence were the most important variables associated with the timing of sexual debut. Results support a social-personal framework for understanding sexual risk-taking among adolescents in psychiatric care, and the data offer relatively strong evidence that specific factors could be used to identify troubled teens at risk for early sexual debut.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Juvenile Research, Univeresity of Illinois at Chicago, 840 South Wood, Chicago, IL 60612, USA. gdonenberg@psych.uic.edu
authors.forename: Geri R
authors.initials: GR
authors.lastname: Donenberg
authors.forename: Fred B
authors.initials: FB
authors.lastname: Bryant
authors.forename: Erin
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Emerson
authors.forename: Helen W
authors.initials: HW
authors.lastname: Wilson
authors.forename: Keryn E
authors.initials: KE
authors.lastname: Pasch
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D002641:Chicago; D003075:Coitus; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009042:Motivation; D011567:Psychiatric Department, Hospital; D012309:Risk-Taking; D012725:Sexual Behavior / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014505:Urban Population