Original article
Alcohol, Helping Young Adults to Have Unprotected Sex with Casual Partners: Findings from a Daily Diary Study of Alcohol Use and Sexual Behavior

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2008.05.008Get rights and content

Abstract

Purpose

To examine the event-level association between alcohol consumption and the likelihood of unprotected sex among college-age young adults considering contextual factors of partner type and amount of alcohol consumed.

Methods

A 30-day, Web-based, structured daily diary was used to collect daily reports of sexual behaviors and alcohol use from 116 sexually active young adults, yielding 2,764 diary records. Each day we assessed the prior evening's behavior regarding alcohol consumption, opportunities for sex, sexual intercourse, condom use, and contextual factors including type of sexual partner.

Results

Based on multilevel models, drinking proximal to events of sexual intercourse increased the likelihood of unprotected sex with casual but not steady partners. For women there was a positive association between number of drinks and a greater likelihood of unprotected sex with casual partners but a negative association with steady partners. Drinking during situations involving opportunities for sex with casual partners increased the likelihood of sex. For women especially, drinking more increased the likelihood of sex occurring regardless of partner type.

Conclusions

Failure to assess the contextual determinants of the alcohol—unprotected sex association may result in underestimates of the magnitude of this association. These data highlight an important area for intervention with young adults: reducing alcohol-involved sexual risk behavior with casual partners, especially among women.

Section snippets

Participants

A total of 223 young adults who were college undergraduates participated in a larger longitudinal cohort daily diary study on alcohol use. These participants were recruited from the Psychology Department participant pool at the University of Connecticut. At the conclusion of the study participants received research credit and a small cash incentive, the amount of which varied based upon the number of days completed each week. Eligible participants had consumed alcohol at least once in the 30

Descriptive statistics

Evening alcohol consumption was reported on 694 of the 2,764 person days for a total of 4,311 standardized drinks consumed across the 116 participants during the 30-day study. Men reported drinking on an average of 6.43 evenings (SD 4.98) and women reported drinking on an average of 5.59 evenings (SD 4.10) during the 30-day study. Mean number of drinks on nights when alcohol was consumed was 6.29 (SD 3.13) for men and 4.60 (SD 2.19) for women. Participants reported a total of 337 opportunities

Discussion

We predicted that, given the opportunity and desire to have sex, drinking any amount alcohol and drinking increasing amounts of alcohol on a given evening each increases the likelihood that sexual activity will occur. Secondly, we predicted that any alcohol use and increasing amounts of alcohol consumption are each associated with a greater event-specific likelihood of unprotected sex. We also evaluated, as moderating variables, participant gender and “casual” vs. “steady” partner type.

We found

Acknowledgments

Support for this study was provided by National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism grant P50-AA03510 (Alcohol Research Center). Support for preparation of this manuscript was provided in part by a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award, Individual Pre-doctoral Fellowship from the National Institutes of Mental Health F31MH072547 (to S.M.K.). We thank Jennifer Scanlon, Amy Setkowski, and Nick Maltby for their invaluable involvement in the data collection for the larger study.

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