The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between sexual behaviors and psychosocial factors (e.g. self-management skills) among university students. In December 2009, an anonymous self-reported questionnaire survey was administered to 107 students (46 men and 61 women, the age mean and standard deviation was 20.0±1.3) in one of the national universities in the Tokyo metropolitan area. The dependent variables were sexual intercourse and sexual safety. The independent variables were sex, age, self-management skills, social skills and self-esteem.
The main results were as follows.
1) The percentages of those who had ever experienced sexual intercourse were 58.7% for male students and 60.7% for female students and there was no statistical difference between the two percentages. The percentage significantly increased in proportion to increase in age.
2) The percentages of those who had practiced safe sex were 59.3% for male students and 86.5% for female students and there was a significant difference.
3) There were significant positive relationships between self-management skills, social skills and self-esteem. But there was no significant relationship between self-management skills and "communication skills", which was a subscale of social skills. This implies that self-management skills do not have a strong relationship with skills for communication.
4) The results of the logistic regression analysis significantly showed that older students with low self-management skills and high social skills tended to have experience of sexual intercourse. The odds ratios were 1.61 for age, 0.80 for self-management skills and 1.10 for social skills. No independent variables related to sexual safety except that women tended to exercise safety more than men did.
These results imply the possibility of the effectiveness of enhancing self-management skills in sexual education to prevent a too-early sexual debut.
