Associations between adolescents watching pornography and poor mental health in three Swedish surveys

• The aim of this study was to examine the association between watching pornography and poor mental health in three repeated cross-sectional surveys in Sweden (2004, 2009, 2014) among high school seniors (13,277 students) with an average age of 18 years. The same index questions concerning ever having watched pornography and the frequency of watching pornography during the last year were combined with three different measures of psychological health and background control variables in multiple logistic regression and forward stepwise logistic regression models. The repeated cross-sectional surveys did not find any consistent associations across years between poor mental health and ever having watched pornography or the frequency of watching pornography. Having watched deviant pornography (containing violence, children and/or animals) was associated with poor mental health among boys in two surveys but only in one survey among girls. Other characteristics, such as mother's unemployment (especially boys), parenting style (especially high controlling parents among boys) and experiences of sexual abuse (especially penetrating abuse among girls), were more consistently and strongly associated to poor mental health across the three surveys. This study stresses the importance of controlling for multiple background variables when studying the association between watching pornography and mental health, since the association might primarily be explained by underlying confounding variables.

Ämnesord

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Folkhälsovetenskap, global hälsa, socialmedicin och epidemiologi (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Public Health, Global Health, Social Medicine and Epidemiology (hsv//eng)

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Klinisk medicin -- Psykiatri (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Clinical Medicine -- Psychiatry (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Adolescents

Watching

Pornography

Mental health

SCL-25

TSCC

Psykologi

Psychology

Adolescents

Mental health

Pornography

SCL-25

TSCC

Watching

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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