Trajectory of sexual aggressiveness as a function of hopelessness among high risk adolescents

Background: The rising rate of adolescents convicted for sexual crimes demands increased understanding of aggressive sexual behavior, especially among adolescents living in high poverty communities.

Methods: The Mobile Youth Survey (MYS) is a community research project designed to annually determine decision making and subsequent health risk among adolescents that are living in impoverished neighborhoods in Alabama. The responses of 2706 adolescents that participated in the 1998 to 2003 waves of the MYS were analyzed in order to determine the change in sexually aggressive behavior as a function of hopelessness. High levels of hopelessness among adolescents predicts a variety of risky health behaviors. Sexually aggressive behavior was determined by participants affirmative response to the question, “Have you ever had sexual intercourse with someone when they really didn't want to?”. Baseline sexually aggressive behavior was determined by the participants' first year responses to this exact question. Changes in sexual behavior were assessed by modeling the participants' second year responses while statistically controlling for baseline responses. Hopelessness is the major factor of interest; gender and age were included as covariates.

Results: Hopelessness has a significant relationship to changes in sexually aggressive behavior after controlling for gender, age, and baseline behavior (F=11.15, p < 0.001). All two-way interactions were examined, but none were significant.

Conclusions: High levels of hopelessness are associated with increases in the likelihood to engage in sexually aggressive behavior over time. Understanding the role of hopelessness in the trajectory of sexually aggressive behavior could potential aid in targeting adolescents for intervention.