Pre Teen Sexual Activity In Hawkes Bay, New Zealand.

Author

Dr Rosy Fenwicke, Dr Dawn Elder and Mr Gordon Purdie.

Speaker

Dr Rosy Fenwicke

Objective

This paper reports the responses of Hawkes Bay High School Students who reported first sexual intercourse under the age of 13 years and compares the subsequent sexual risk behaviours reported by those whose first sexual experience occurred < 13 years with those whose first experience occurred â¥ 13. Results will be discussed in the context of a review of the literature about the prevalence of, and implications for future well-being of sexual activity in pre adolescents.

Methods

981 Hawkes Bay High School Students completed a self administered written anonymous questionnaire in a supervised classroom situation in August 1998, of whom 952 answered the question about age of first sexual intercourse.

Results

Of 981 students completing the survey, 952 answered both questions about whether or not they had had sex, and the age they first had sex. 9.7% (95% CI-7.9%-11.7%) reported they were < 13 years at sexual debut. 12.3% (95% CI-9.9%-15.1%) of Year 10 students reported sex before 13 in comparison to 4.4% (95%CI 2.4%-7.3%) in Year 13 (p=0.0007). Males 54/429 (12.6%) were no more likely than females 38/523 (7.3%) to report first sex under age 13 (p=0.089). Maori 60/219(27.4%) were significantly more likely to report sex under the age of 13, than European 22/659 (3.3%) (p<0.0001). First sex under 13 was significantly more likely to be reported as a result of force (10.8%) than those experiencing first sex over age 13, (2.12%)(p=0.003). Students reporting first sex under 13 were significantly likely to have had more partners (35.56% >5 partners) than those over 13 at first sex (16.58% >5 partners) (p<0.001). Females reporting first sex < 13 (30.19%) were less likely to be using birth control than those reporting first sex over 13 (58.06%) (p<0.0137).

Conclusions

Data from this study relating to the sexual activity of 654 Year 10 students has been published previously. This paper looks in more detail at the self reported early sexual activity of both Year 10 and 13 students. First sex under age 13 was self-reported in 9.7% of the 952 students who constituted approximately 10% of the high school population in Hawkes Bay in 1998. Ethnicity, but not gender was associated with early sexual activity. Early sexual activity was reported less by Year 13 than Year 10 students. Early sexual activity was associated with subsequent sexual risk behaviours. These associations have also been reported in the international literature. Identifying young people who are sexually active at a young age may create an opportunity for intervention to enable young people to minimize future risky sexual behaviours.

Biography

Dr Rosy Fenwicke.
MB ChB. Dip Obst. MRCGP. FRNZCGP. Dip Occ Med.

Dr Rosy Fenwicke graduated from Otago Medical School in 1980. After working overseas, Dr Fenwicke was the Medical Director for the Central Region of the NZFPA before working in her own general practice with an obstetrics focus, in Eastborne.

In 1993 she worked in Hawkes Bay in general practice and community health throughout the region. This work included providing adolescent sexual health care, abortion services and forensic sexual abuse examinations for children and adolescents. Dr Fenwicke undertook a survey of the sexual experiences of 952 Hawkes Bay high school students in 1998, data from which was published in the New Zealand Medical Journal in 2000.

After moving back to Wellington in 1999, Dr Fenwicke worked part time at the Student Health Service at Victoria University and also Wellington Women's Hospital as an operating doctor providing abortions. In the past 10 years she has continued to undertake ACC assessments of people who report sexual abuse. She is now also works in general practice and is the National Medical Officer for the New Zealand Fire Service.

She is the editor of "In Practice: The Lives of New Zealand Women Doctors in the 21st Century", published by Random House in 2004.