The correlation between age of first dating and sexual behavior of adolescents and young adults in Indonesia

Article history Received 2nd April 2018 Revised 13th April 2018 Accepted 31st May 2018 Premarital sexual behavior among Indonesian adolescents currently becomes easier to be found than previous generation. Based on health survey in 2017, both female and male adolescents admitted that they experienced dating since the aged of 16. Data showed that adolescents who were in relationship admitted having premarital sex than the common adolescents. This study’s objectives was to investigate the correlation between age of first dating and sexual behavior among adolescents and adults in Indonesia. The sample of this study involved respondents of health demographic survey in Indonesia 2012 who fulfilled the inclusion criteria of men and women aged 15-24 years and unmarried. This research was a quantitative research using descriptive analytic research design with cross sectional approach. The age of first dating on adolescents was higher (96.2%) than young adults (3.8%). The numbers of dating teenagers and adults with sexual behavior (90.3%) was higher than those without sexual behavior (9.7%). Chi-Square correlation test results by using 95% of confidence revealed p-value equal to 0.004 < 0.05 with value of correlation coefficient equal to 0.023 indicating positive and significant correlation. Conclusion: There was correlation between age of first dating and sexual behavior on adolescents and adults in Indonesia.


Introduction
Premarital sexual behavior among adolescents continues to rise and reach alarming levels.Adolescents now become the targets of social crime and high risk of the rise of incidence of early pregnancy (Utomo, I.D., McDonald, P., Hull, T. and Reimondos1, 2010).Indonesia would experience the first demographic transition with a total fertility rate (TFR) close to 2 and low mortality rate by this decade (Badan Pusat Statistik Indonesia, 2013).The next phenomenon is the second demographic transition which is characterized by the sexual and reproductive trends.The two main phenomena that occur in the second demographic transition are the declining fertility rates and changes in sexual behavior (Indonesian Ministry of Health, 2013).Some predictions related to this situation are the sexual revolutions that begin to take place in several major cities following the western country trend (Utomo, 2013).
A national survey in Malaysia which was conducted in 2005 found that nearly 1.3% (25 of 1901) of young people between 15 and 24 years of unmarried age had sexual intercourse, a cross-sectional study in 2001 showed that 5.4% of a total of 4500 students, aged between 12 and 19 years, were reported to have had sexual intercourse (Lee, Chen, Lee, & Kaur, 2006).Whereas in China, 73.6% of adolescents who had boyfriends tended to agree with premarital sex because it was caused by a http://dx.doi.org/10.31101/jhtam.441sense of curiosity with the first time dating so that adolescents had more sexual knowledge of more open attitude and more likely to have a girlfriend (Li et al., 2013).
According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control), in a study conducted on several high school students in the US in 2010, about 47.4% of students had sexual intercourse, approximately 33.7% had sex in the last 3 months and 15.3% had sex with four or more people during their lifetime (Health, 2011).In Indonesia, the results of Indonesia Adolescent Reproductive Health Survey 2012 shows that 29.5% of male adolescents and 6.2% of female adolescents had touched or stimulated their partners, 48.1% of male adolescents 29.3% female adolescents had kissed lips, and 79.6% of male adolescents and 71.6% of female adolescent ever held hands with their partners (Indonesian Ministry of Health, 2013) (Statistics Indonesia, National Population and Family Planning Board, & Ministry of Health, 2013).The Adolescent Reproductive Health Knowledge Index (KRR) had an upward trend.In 2012 the figure was 50.5 percent, in 2017 KKR had been in the position of 52.4 percent.Achievement always exceeded 1.5 points from the targets which had been set in BKKBN Strategic Plan 2017.RPJMN Survey 2017, both male and female adolescents admitted firstly having boyfriends or girlfriends at the age of 16 years.Those who had boyfriends or girlfriends mostly claimed to have had sexual intercourse than common adolescents.Although births in women at the age of 15-19 group in the two survey periods were successfully lowered the target of 33 from 42 targeted in 2016 and 38 from 44 targeted in 2015.Having understanding of the phenomena in this background of study, the purpose of this study is to determine the correlation between the age of first dating and sexual behavior in adolescents and young adults in Indonesia.

Research Design
This research was quantitative research, using descriptive analytical design with cross sectional approach.The research was conducted in 33 provinces in Indonesia in December 2015 -November 2016.

The Research Population, Sample of Research/Participant/Informant, and Sampling Technique
The populations in this study were all teenagers and young adults aged 15-24 years in Indonesia by 19.399 people with a large sample of adolescents who met the inclusion criteria were as many as 14.010 people.The sampling technique used three stages, namely Primary Sampling Units (PSU), Probability Proportional to Size (PPS) and selected 25 households in systematically selected census block of the results of updated second-stage household census.

Data Collection
Data collection techniques in this study using available data from IDHS (2012) in the form of input STATA program which could be downloaded through the official website of MEASURE DHS, ICF International www.measuredhs.com.The obtained data was secondary data.All data were collected, checked for completeness and analyzed by researchers.

Data Analysis
Data were analyzed by univariate and bivariate to analyze the correlation using test Chi-square (x2) and presented with a dummy table.

Research Ethics
The study was conducted using data set IDHS 2012 at the permission of central BKKBN as one of the owners' data and research ethics board of the faculty of health sciences 'Aisyiyah University of Yogyakarta.Procedural ability of respondents involved in this study was fully the responsibility of personnel survey (BKKBN).Confidentiality of this research data was assured since the data set used only the identification number of respondents in the form of code.

Devi Elfita Sari et.al (The Correlation Between Age Of First Dating and Sexual Behavior Of Adolescents and Young
Adults In Indonesia)

Characteristics of Respondents
Table 1 shows the distribution of the frequency characteristics of respondents in the study were grouped by age, gender, education, place of residence and courtship.In each characteristic showed most respondents aged 15-19 years at this time (adolescent) (61.2%).Gender respondents were mostly male (54.8%).The respondents' education was mostly high school (50.7%) and the respondents' residence mostly in urban areas (60.8%).

Age of first dating and sexual behavior amongst adolescents and adults in Indonesia
Table 2 shows the distribution of frequency of the age of first dating among adolescents was higher (96.2%) compared to young adults (3.8%)

Sexual behavior among adolescents and young adults in Indonesia
Table 3 shows the distribution of frequency of sexual behavior in the early youth and young adults is higher in sexual behavior (90.3%) compared to no sexual behavior (9.7%).

The Age of First Dating with Sexual Behavior on Adolescents and Young Adults in Indonesia
Table 4 shows Statistics Test of the correlation between age of first dating and sexual behavior among adolescents and young adults in Indonesia.Obtained p-value 0.004 < (0,05) so it could be 〈 (0,05) concluded that there was correlation between age of first dating and sexual behavior among adolescents and young adults in Indonesia.Correlation coefficient of 0.023 indicated positive and significant relation.

Age of First Dating among Adolescents and young adults in Indonesia
Teenagers aged 15-19 tended to do more sexual behavior such as doing hand grip, kissing, petting, and sexual intercourse.The percentage of increasing sexual behavior was due to more frequent and more intimate sexual behavior with a partner occurred.In Bosnia and Herzegovina the teenagers aged 14-16 years (74.4%) had sexual practice started from dates, holding hands, kissing, and sexual intercourse (Hadzimehmedovic, Ferkovic, & Jahic, 2017).Similarly, in this study respondents classified as engaging sexual behavior when they hold their partner's hand, kissing, and sexual intercourse.Data shows that Indonesian adolescents aged 15-19 did hold their partner's hands as many as 12,633 respondents.In Indonesia 14,010 of high school respondents stated that they had desire to engage to sexual practice in their dates that usually started from holding hands until sexual intercourse and it was found that the younger the dates started the more sexual practices conducted.

Sexual behavior in early youth and young adults in Indonesia
The percentage of respondents who did sexual behavior was 90.3%.In Indonesia itself, the sexual behavior of teenagers mostly done by adolescents was an act of adolescents in doing their desire by dating.Engaging sexual practice often experienced by high school adolescents and it is popular in Indonesia they engaged in holding their partner's hand, whilst there were 1259 of the 14,010 respondents engaged in sexual intercourse.There were differences of characteristics between women and men such as their motives, values, character, personality, and attitudes.Those characteristics are also associated with their external factors such as place to lives, values in community as well as their school values.Therefore, it seems to be that the reason of why holding hands became more popular for adolescents was because it has light negative social consequences compare to sexual intercourse in Indonesian community (Utomo, I.D., McDonald, P., Hull, T. and Reimondos1, 2010).

The correlation between age of first dating and sexual behavior in early adolescents and young adults in Indonesia
It is believed that age of first date has significant influence on the sexual practice.Evidence shows that the younger adolescents engaged in dates the higher the intense of engaging sexual practice.It is linear with Indonesian health survey that adolescents who did their first date in their younger age, they tend to engaged in premarital sexual intercourse (Indonesian Ministry of Health, 2013).Besides, at the age of adolescence they have a development step about sexuality as the sign of puberty, which lead on their sexual fantasy and desire of having sexual practice (Kazaura & Masatu, 2009).However, when such normal changes sometimes create problems, particularly when they have no knowledge about sexual reproductive health.In some cases, the desire of having sexual practice lead to their negative behavior such as trying pornography, sexual abuse, or practicing sexual intercourse without any contraception, which has consequences of premarital pregnancy (Folayan, Odetoyinbo, Brown, & Harrison, 2014).A survey conducted in America revealed that among adolescents aged 14-17, 72% of female adolescents and 85% of male adolescents had already their first sexual intercourse.The age of first sexual intercourse for male was age of 13.7 years and for female was 14.3 years (Cavazos-rehg et al., 2009).Another study also shows that male adolescents have more sexual practice than female adolescents (Laddunuri, 2013).It is similar with this study as male adolescents was 1,46 times more frequent, had sexual practice than female adolescents.
The place of living also contributes on the sexual behavior and practice among adolescents.Adolescents live in the city had more sexual practice than those living in the village.It might be because people in city area tend to adopt western lifestyle on having sexual relationship therefore they engaged more in sexual relationship.Additionally, this study also shows that adolescents' parent who have lower education also contribute in adolescents' sexual practice.Adolescents who grows with parents with lower level education have more frequent and earlier on engaging sexual practice than adolescents who have parents with higher education.

Conclusions and Suggestions
The conclusion of this study that the respondents with the age of first dating in the early teens were higher (96.2%), sexual behavior was higher (90.3%) and there was correlation between age of first dating and sexual behavior in the early teens and young adults in Indonesia by Chi-Square test results obtained p-value of 0.004 <0.05.Suggestions in the study are decision makers and educators (Ministry of Health and State Minister for Youth and Sports Affairs) on the development of health technology assessment should make regulations that ensure a comprehensive reproductive health education given to each level of education according to the needs of adolescents to decrease the prevalence of premarital sexual behavior.Policy makers must begin to develop more interventions involving macro structure to eliminate the contextual risk factors that adversely affect adolescent sexual and reproductive health through the development potential of adolescents as program positive youth development as well as MOH and State Ministry for Population/ National Family Planning Coordinating Board must increase the intensity of reproductive health programs and special training for adolescents and young adults.

Table 1 .
Frequency Distribution of Respondents Characteristics by age, gender, education and a place to stay in Indonesia

Table 2 .
The frequency distribution of age at the beginning of courtship teens and young adults in Indonesia

Table 3 .
Frequency distribution of sexual behavior among adolescents and young adults in Indonesia Devi Elfita Sari et.al (The Correlation Between Age Of First Dating and Sexual Behavior Of Adolescents and Young Adults In Indonesia)

Table 4 .
Statistics Test of the correlation between age of first dating and sexual behavior among adolescents and young adults in Indonesia Devi Elfita Sari et.al (The Correlation Between Age Of First Dating and Sexual Behavior Of Adolescents and Young Adults In Indonesia)