Heterosexual romantic expectation of early adolescents and its influencing factors / 中国学校卫生

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To explore the heterosexual romantic expectation in early adolescence(10-14 years)and its influencing factors, and to provide a reference for instructing children of early puberty to establish a positive interpersonal relationship(including heterosexual relationship) and improving their healthy development.@*Methods@#Stratified cluster sampling method was adopted to recruit students of grade 6-8 in three middle schools of Shanghai during November to December, 2017. Students were surveyed anonymously using Computer Assisted Self-Interview approach via the tablets. The collected data included the information on demographic, families, peers, use of the media, community cohesion and heterosexual romantic expectation. The ttest, Chi-square test, ANOVA and multiple linear regression were used to explore the relationships between potential factors and heterosexual romantic expectation.@*Results@#The mean score of heterosexual romantic expectation was 2.55. Score of the boys was higher than that of girls (2.62 vs. 2.47, t=2.65, P<0.05). There was no statistically significant difference between the scores of the ages before 12 years old (10-11 2.34, 12 2.28), but a significant increase of the scores along the age after 12 years old(13 2.69, 14 3.05). Multiple linear regression suggested that respondents with older age, poorer caregiver-child relationship, higher proportion of friends of the opposite sex, more friends that thought having boyfriends/girlfriends was important, more TV/movie use and lower community cohesion had higher score of heterosexual romantic expectation of early adolescents(P<0.05).@*Conclusion@#The early adolescents had relative conservative views on the heterosexual romantic relationships of adolescents of their own age while the boys were more permissive than girls. The heterosexual romantic expectation improved significantly after 12 years and may be influenced by factors of family, peers, media and community.