Mental Health

Teens Regret having Sex after Excessive Drinking, Study Says

By Affirunisa Kankudti | Update Date: Feb 14, 2013 07:11 AM EST

A new study has found that many teens who have sex after drinking a lot of alcohol tend to regret their actions later.

The study was conducted by researchers from Australia, who found that teens who binge-drink are more likely to have risky sex and regret their actions later.

The study included some 450 students, of which 44 percent said that they had sex in the past year and about 50 percent said that they have had binge-drinking sessions.

"Significant numbers of students drank excessive amounts of alcohol and at time, lost control of the ability to stop drinking," said Paul Agius, lead author of the study from Burnet Institute. Agius had conducted the study while he was at La Trobe University, according to the press release.

The study results showed that half of the teens who drank alcohol before sex (around 28 percent) regretted sex due to alcohol. One in 12 sexually active teens said that they had sex with three or more people in the past 12 months. The study results also showed that about 5 percent of girls became pregnant.

"Not surprisingly, students who drank large amounts of alcohol were at greater risk of having sex which they later regretted because of alcohol use," Agius explained. "The finding is concerning because having sex you regret may mean you didn't feel in control of the experience. These students were also more likely to have multiple sexual partners over a year."

According to data from National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, underage drinking is a serious problem in the U.S., with over 10 million teens reporting that they have had large amounts of alcohol in the past.

Teens who binge-drink are at a high risk of committing or being victims of sexual assault like rape. Also, these teens are more likely to have high-risk sex including having many partners and not using protection, says NIAAA.

The study is published in the Journal of Public Health

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