Sexual behavior of redemption school adolescents, Pará State, Brazil

Abstract

According to the World Health Organization, adolescence is the period of human life ranging from 10 to 19 years of age. In this phase, adolescents go through several changes and, in most cases, they begin their sexual life during this period and may assume some risky sexual behaviors, such as inconsistent condom use and early sexual initiation. The objective of this work is to investigate the sexual behaviors related to the sexual initiation of adolescent students, enrolled in the high school of the state public network of the Municipality of Redenção, State of Pará, in the year 2022, considering factors such as, age of the first relationship, income, family cycle, gender. For data collection, a questionnaire was used, consisting of objective questions about behavior and completely anonymous. For the statistical tests, the software STATISTICA v.6.0 and BioEstat 5.0 were used. A total of 171 adolescents were interviewed, 67 males (39.2%) and 104 females (60.8%), with a mean age of 16.12 years, with no significant difference between men and women. Of the 171 adolescents interviewed, 149 (87.1%) reported having already started sexually. Among these, 59 (39.6%) were male and 90 (60.4%) were female. The mean age of sexual initiation was 15.17 years, with 14.71 years among men and 15.47 years among women. In 50 adolescents (33.6%) an early sexual initiation was observed. Of the 149 adolescents who had already started sexually, 52 (34.9%) reported using it and 97 (65.1%) reported not using it or only using it occasionally. In the population sample studied, risky sexual behavior was observed among adolescents from Redenção.