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