Study Links Teen Depression with Sexual Experimentation, Drug Use

Agape Press ^ | 12/5/05 | Jim Brown

[wagglebee]

(AgapePress) - A prominent mental health counselor says depression may be the new sexually transmitted disease. He points to a new study that finds sexual experimentation and drug use often precede adolescent depression.

Many mental health counselors assume students will medicate their depression with sex and drug use. However, a recently published study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine finds that depression is actually a risk factor for sexual experimentation on the part of girls, and heavy drug use on the part of boys. The study, led by Dr. Denise Hallfors, followed more than 13,000 middle and high school students for two years in a row.

Dr. Warren Throckmorton, a psychology professor at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, says discussions of risks associated with teen sexuality need to include more than just STDs and pregnancy.

"Students who are depressed may owe their depression to their risky behavior," he observes, "which again is just one more reason why students should be warned about their behavior, that it does have consequences."

Throckmorton also contends that the findings expose some of the adverse effects of condom-based sex education in public schools, and should prompt parents and educators to discourage teen sexual relationships.

"Teenagers simply don't have the financial [or] the emotional resources to handle those kinds of relationships," the educator says. "And yet there are many people who are in the Planned Parenthood camp ... and [agree with] Advocates for Youth and groups like that who essentially say that sex if fine as long as it's physically safe. Well, this study should wake everybody up that it isn't safe."

While he acknowledges that more research is needed to isolate the causes and cures for the link between experimentation and depression, Throckmorton says "there is no reason for policy makers to wait to encourage abstinence." He says every health-care professional, school counselor, teacher, and parent should be doing that.

"Whatever we think about the morality of sexual behavior, can't we agree that teens should be given a clear and consistent message that it is best to wait to engage in sex until they are ready to accept the financial, relationship, and emotional consequences of making that choice?" he wonders. For nearly all teens, he adds, that would be adulthood.

[The_Reader_David]

Although the epidemiology in the study---a correlation between teen depression and previous sexual activity---and the sort of post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning which makes it easy to confuse correlation with causation suggests that sexual activity leads to depression, I would suggest the contrarian view that depressed teens are likely to try to assuage their depression with sexual pleasure, and are only diagnosed as depressed when the attempt fails.

The Fathers of the Church gave a good analysis of the relation between our fallen passions and sinful behavior. Pleasure-seeking is almost always a flight from the pain of our fallen condition, and always, just as the serpent's promise in the Garden, fails to deliver, producing more pain, and more pleasure-seeking.

[wagglebee]

The Fathers of the Church gave a good analysis of the relation between our fallen passions and sinful behavior. Pleasure-seeking is almost always a flight from the pain of our fallen condition, and always, just as the serpent's promise in the Garden, fails to deliver, producing more pain, and more pleasure-seeking.

Try getting the leftist to allow you to say that in a public place, especially a school, where God forbid some kid might find out that the answer to all of his problems is something other than Ritilan, Prozac and condoms.

[The_Reader_David]

Oh, and I'm an Orthodox--we follow St. John Cassian's listing of Eight Grevious Vices. Seven are familiar in the West, where they are called the "Seven Deadly Sins", the eighth is self-esteem. (Anyone who doubts it's a vice should try dealing with a classroom full of ed majors--they take offense at being made to work hard.)

[nicmarlo]

A prominent mental health counselor says depression may be the new sexually transmitted disease. He points to a new study that finds sexual experimentation and drug use often precede adolescent depression.

I would add in with this abortions, about which the 9th Circus said parents have no right to know about...even though parents ARE REQUIRED to care for their children, otherwise they risk removal of said children by DSS for neglect/abuse, etc. But, how can parents know how to treat their children for unknown ailments when they are not allowed to be told by school and/or other authorities who have taken it upon themselves to give minor children, not their own, birth control pills, prescriptions for STD's, and/or whisk them off for abortions, etc.?

[wagglebee]

I had always assumed that self-esteem (which I have found from bitter experience is often the catalyst for the other vices/sins and is also the most difficult to let go of) was a form of hubris (pride).

[coloradan]

I'm sure this article would NEVER stoop to mistaking correlation for causation, but I can't find where it asserts this... Could someone help me out?

[supercat]

Although the epidemiology in the study---a correlation between teen depression and previous sexual activity---and the sort of post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning which makes it easy to confuse correlation with causation suggests that sexual activity leads to depression, I would suggest the contrarian view that depressed teens are likely to try to assuage their depression with sexual pleasure, and are only diagnosed as depressed when the attempt fails.

I would suggest that there are causitive arrows in both directions. People who are depressed may seek consolation in the form of sexual relations, but the failure of that to solve their problem will make their depression worse.

Even if the depression contributed to the sexual behavior, that doesn't mean that the sexual behavior doesn't itself cause more severe depression.

[Mad_as_heck]

You mean a life of depravity does not lead to long term happiness and fulfillment? Who knew!

[nmh]

Bump for later read.

Glancing over it, it makes sense.

Of course what is taught in school is precisely the problem. Have sex, ah "safe" sex and you'll be fine.

[Old Student]

"Anyone who doubts it's a vice should try dealing with a classroom full of ed majors--they take offense at being made to work hard.)"

Where do you teach? As an ed major, I haven't noticed any teachers trying to make us work hard... I will admit to having found a few who try to make us think hard, though, here at the University of Oklahoma. For anyone who is an ed major, that may be even more difficult, I will also admit.

[philman_36]

Teenagers simply don't have the financial [or] the emotional resources...
Well DUH! Not enough experience yet to light the path of life. They're called "young adults" for a reason.

[philman_36]

How did rock and roll escape this sex and drugs study?

[Guenevere]

He points to a new study that sexual experimentation and drug use often precede adolescent depression....

...No kidding :^

And we needed a new study because we didn't know this??????..sheesh!

[No Truce With Kings]

"He points to a new study that finds sexual experimentation and drug use often precede adolescent depression."

'Ja think?

What a blinding flash of the obvious.

[Old Student]

"And we needed a new study because we didn't know this??????..sheesh!"

I think I noticed something like three chapters citing many studies about this sort of thing in my current textbook. New, it ain't. Maybe the way this one draws it's conclusion is new. Depression causes kids to have sex? OK...

The textbook is Steinberg's "Adolescence" 7th Edition, btw.

[Guenevere]

Does it not boggle the mind that good money is spent to research something already well known!....

[chas1776]

If you bother to read "Catcher In The Rye" it portrays what teenagers go through. What we need is to control the hormone activity through chemistry.

[sweetliberty]

This "don't tell the parents their children are murdering their grandchildren" travesty is reason enough, apart from a gazillion others, not to allow our children near a public school. If there is one thing that children will never find in public school, it is real answers to real problems. Trying to train and educate a child in public school is like trying to operate a complicated piece of machinery or electronic equipment with no prior knowledge of mechanics or electronics and not being allowed access to the instruction manual.

[sweetliberty]

"And we needed a new study because we didn't know this??????"

Yep! And another new study shows men and women are different. Bet you didn't know that! < /sarcasm >

[Old Student]

In my research class they noted that many of the studies have very few people in them, and often from a very limited population. For example, studying college students at a rural cow college may not generalize to even college students at an Ivy League university, and almost certainly not to the entire population of the US. So it kind of depends on how may people the study included, and how much effort they made to make the study population representative of the whole group they're studying. This makes sense to me.

One thing I noted in my own look at research (and that was NOT very thorough or in-depth) is that many studies don't look at exactly the same things that other similar studies looked at, so it is often tough to compare them. Also, researchers often find that previous studies identified something that they hadn't thought of when they designed the study, so more studies need to be done to take those things into account.

A good example in my textbook was Harter's 1999 study of adolescents by asking them to describe their personalities by listing traits they thought described themselves when with different people. This study listed six situations, "in the classroom", "with a group of friends", "with a romantic interest", "with my best friend", "with my mother", "with my father." Her previous study did not separate the parents, or groups of, or individual, friends, giving only four situations, "with parents" and "with friends," being the ones they split out, so they modified it, and did it again, to develop better information that was cited in the textbook. (this isn't in the textbook, but our instructor had us read an article by Harter describing the two studies, and others related to her work.)

Ok, so to get to the point, ahhh, yes and no. I'd want to read the study myself, rather than someone else's short and non-technical description of it. I don't have the math background to properly assess their statistical analysis, myself, but I know some people who do, if I really need it. Maybe it was necessary, and maybe not, and I'd have to look at it to even begin to determine if it was either necessary or useful. Sometimes they are, sometimes not. Jeeze, I hope that helps...