Study Links Teen Depression with Sexual Experimentation, Drug Use

By Jim Brown
December 5, 2005

(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.

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