The religious characteristics that influence risk behaviour in Christian youth.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate if the belief and practice of Christianity is associated with alcohol use/abuse behaviour as well as risky sexual behaviour among Christian youth. The religious characteristics of focus were social support from church leaders/elders, social support from church peers, God control beliefs and reported religiosity. The sample selected were Christian youth between the ages of 18 and 21 years from churches in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal. The need for this research was motivated by the limited amount of research on religion and risk behaviour among young people as well as what religious factors influence these said risk behaviours. Furthermore, available research on religion and risk behaviour have mostly focused on indirect religious influences such as church attendance and involvement in church activities. However, God control beliefs argued to be a more direct religious influence have been less studied. This study sheds light on these direct and indirect characteristics of religion as factors that influence risk behaviour. A questionnaire comprising demographic information, a measure of reported religiosity, the AGLOC-A scale, the SexGLOC-A scale, the Social Support from Church Peers scale and the Social Support from Church Leaders/elders scale was used to collect the data. The results found God control beliefs to be the most predictive of alcohol use/abuse behaviour. With risky sexual behaviour, significant negative relationships were found with social support from church peers, social support from church leaders/elders and God control beliefs, however the most significant predictor of risky sexual behaviour was social support from church leaders/elders.