Sexual behaviour in the general population of Sweden

The AIDS issue was a focus of interest in Sweden during the latter part of the 1980s. To assess changes in sexual behaviour we carried out annual mail surveys in random samples of the general population during this period. Each sample comprised 4000 individuals in the age range 16-44 years. The response rate was 71%. Throughout the study, 32% of the males and 20% of the females reported being single, with no regular partner. The corresponding figures for male and female teenagers were 78% and 54%, respectively. A multiple logistic regression analysis indicated that the odds ratios for having several sequential sexual partners were 29.9 for singles with no regular partner, 8.8 for singles with one regular partner (married/cohabiting = 1.0), 1.7 in the 16-17-year group, 1.6 in the 20-24-year group (34-44-year-group = 1.0) and 2.5 for big-city-dwellers (rural areas = 1.0). These differences were statistically significant. Of all respondents, 2% reported having had five sexual partners or more during the past year. Most of the respondents with a large number of sexual partners had not used a condom during the past month. The use of condoms increased during the study period, but still by the end of the period most of the casual sexual contacts took place without the use of a condom.