To determine if risky sexual intercourse, sexually transmitted diseases, and sexual intercourse at an early age are associated with psychiatric disorder.
Cross sectional study of a birth cohort at age 21 years with assessments presented by computer (for sexual behaviour) and by trained interviewers (for psychiatric disorder).
New Zealand in 1993-4.
992 study members (487 women) from the Dunedin multidisciplinary health and development study. Complete data were available on both measures for 930 study members.
Psychiatric disorders (anxiety, depression, eating disorder, substance dependence, antisocial disorder, mania, schizophrenia spectrum) and measures of sexual behaviour.
Young people diagnosed with substance dependence, schizophrenia spectrum, and antisocial disorders were more likely to engage in risky sexual intercourse, contract sexually transmitted diseases, and have sexual intercourse at an early age (before 16 years). Unexpectedly, so were young people with depressive disorders. Young people with mania were more likely to report risky sexual intercourse and have sexually transmitted diseases. The likelihood of risky behaviour was increased by psychiatric comorbidity.
There is a clear association between risky sexual behaviour and common psychiatric disorders. Although the temporal relation is uncertain, the results indicate the need to coordinate sexual medicine with mental health services in the treatment of young people.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 50. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 25 July 2026.
All research outputs
#1,065,509
of 34,444,361 outputs
Outputs from British Medical Journal
#9,386
of 75,607 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#654
of 56,589 outputs
Outputs of similar age from British Medical Journal
#14
of 223 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,444,361 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 96th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 75,607 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 40.5. This one has done well, scoring higher than 87% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 223 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 93% of its contemporaries.
