Condom use across casual and committed relationships: the role of relationship characteristics

• Autor(es): Godinho, Cristina A. ; Pereira, Cicero Roberto ; Pegado, Ana ; Luz, Rita ; Alvarez, Maria-João
• Data: 2024
• Identificador Persistente: http://hdl.handle.net/10451/65399
• Origem: Repositório da Universidade de Lisboa
• Tipo de Documento: Artigo científico
• Idioma: Inglês
• Contribuidor(es): Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto da ULisboa

Descrição

Background While the existence of a complex variety of casual sexual relationships (CSRs) has beenacknowledged, studies rarely describe the prevalence of condom use across these relationships or how their hybrid nature, specifically relationship characteristics, affect condom use.This study aims to describe condom use within committed relationships and various types of casual sexual relationships (CSRs), examining the influence of relationship characteristicson condom use among culturally validated relationship types (committed, friends with benefits, hookups, booty call). Methods Emerging adults (N = 728, 18–29 years, M = 22.56; SD = 3.01) completed a survey with four blocks: sociodemographics; brief sexual history; relationships over the previous year; andcurrent relationship, assessing relationship type, ten relationship characteristics (e.g., commitment, emotional and sexual exclusivity, partner acquaintance, sexual involvement) andcondom use (vaginal, oral, and anal), operationalized by three measures (use at lastencounter, likert-type scale and percentage of use). Results The results showed patterns in condom use by relationship type and illuminated how relationshipcharacteristics—grouped into three factors: commitment, intimacy, and sexuality—mediate condom use. Condom use was more frequent in vaginal than anal and oral sex,and less frequent in committed relationships. No significant differences were found in condom use in vaginal sex between committed relationships and hookups, with condom in these relationships being significantly lower than in booty call. Intimacy mediated between all contrasts tested and condom use in vaginal sex, while sexuality mediated between committed vs. CSRs and condom use in anal and oral sex. Conclusions Findings point to the need of considering the diversity of CSRs for understanding condom use and highlight the role of intimacy as a relevant mechanism associated with condom usein vaginal sex and of sexuality in oral and anal sex, which should be taken into considerationin the tailoring of health promoting efforts