• Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.138-148
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• 2001

The focus of the research was on identifying the risk factors that may result in unprepared intercourse among the adolescent from an ecological systems prospective. A survey questionnaire was conducted from September through December 1999 to 2326 youths, ages from 13-18 years old. After eliminating thirty respondents from Unwed Mother's Home we found that 8.8% of the remaining respondents had experienced sexual intercourse. Of those, 5% of the female and 13.4% of male adolescents has had sexual intercourse, showing 2.7 times more for the male sample population. Broken down to age groups, 3.2% of the thirteen years old group and 19.2% of the eighteen years old group had experienced intercourse, an almost six fold increase in the older age group. To find out the differences between those who had and not had experienced intercourse the group was then divided into two comparative groups by same sex and age variables. Findings from comparative analysis identified five ecological system risk factors among the youth sample that had intercourse；First, individual factor：adolescents who thought less of themselves or didn't consider their potentials, those more exposed other risk behaviors such as drinking, smoking, drugs, runaway and come in contact with pornography, those who thought they knew more about sex and etc. Second, family factor：those who thought family was less important, had less supportive family, higher or lower income family and etc. Third, peer factor：Both groups thought friends were important and had their support. The group with intercourse experience seems to be think that more peers are experiencing other risk behavior. Fourth, school factor：Those in the group who had experienced intercourse seems to think school is less important and with lower academic achievements. Fifth, community factor：There were no statistical significant differences found between the two groups. The overall results from this study implies that if we want to prevent our youths from having unprepared intercourse during adolescence the significance of having meaningful emerging self, family relationship and school experience is important. This study identified the risk factors leading to adolescent sexual intercourse but further research is necessary in finding out about their predictability.