You are here

  • Home
  • Archive
  • Volume 45, Issue 2
  • Sociodemographic and behavioural correlates of lifetime number of sexual partners: findings from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing

Article Text

Article menu
Research
Sociodemographic and behavioural correlates of lifetime number of sexual partners: findings from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing
  1. Sarah E Jackson1,
  2. Lin Yang2,
  3. Nicola Veronese3,
  4. Ai Koyanagi4,
  5. Guillermo Felipe López Sánchez5,
  6. Igor Grabovac6,
  7. Pinar Soysal7,
  8. Lee Smith8
  1. 1 Department of Behavioural Science and Health, University College London (UCL), London, UK
  2. 2 Center for Public Health, Medical University Vienna, Vienna, Austria
  3. 3 Neuroscience Institue, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
  4. 4 Research and Development Unit, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
  5. 5 Faculty of Sport Sciences, University of Murcia, Murcia, Spain
  6. 6 Social and Preventive Medicine, Medical University Vienna, Vienna, Austria
  7. 7 Department of Geriatric Medicine, Bezmialem Vakif University, Istanbul, Turkey
  8. 8 Cambridge Centre for Sport and Exercise Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Lee Smith, Cambridge Centre for Sport and Exercise Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK, CB1 1PT; lee.smith{at}anglia.ac.uk

Abstract

Background No current data are available on correlates of lifetime sexual partners at older ages. This study aimed to explore correlates of the lifetime number of sexual partners in a sample of older adults.

Method Data were from 3054 men and 3867 women aged ≥50 years participating in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Participants reported their lifetime number of sexual partners and a range of sociodemographic characteristics and health behaviours. Multivariable multinomial logistic regression was used to examine correlates of lifetime number of sexual partners, with analyses performed separately for men and women and weighted for non-response.

Results Younger age, being separated/divorced or single/never married, being a current or former smoker, and drinking alcohol regularly or frequently were independently associated with a higher number of sexual partners in both men and women. Homosexuality in men and bisexuality in women were also associated with a higher number of sexual partners. White ethnicity, regular moderate and vigorous physical activity, and the absence of limiting long-standing illness were independently associated with a higher number of sexual partners in women only, and being in the highest and lowest quintiles of wealth was independently associated with a higher number of sexual partners in men only.

Conclusions A higher lifetime number of sexual partners is associated with a number of sociodemographic and behavioural factors. An understanding of who is more likely to have had more sexual partners may help health practitioners to identify individuals who are at greatest risk of sexually transmitted infection and their associated health complications across the life course.

  • number of sexual partners
  • predictors
  • older adults

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjsrh-2018-200230

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text

    Supplementary materials

    Footnotes

    • Contributors SJ and LS conceived the idea. SJ carried out statistical analyses. SJ and LS interpreted the findings. SJ and LS drafted the manuscript. All authors provided extensive comments on the manuscript. All authors approved the final manuscript before submission.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.