Research Links College Students, Casual Sex And Higher Levels Of Depression

A new study claims that college students who have casual sex report higher levels of anxiety and depression.

The study confirmed that both sexes are vulnerable to post-sex psychological distress, the Daily Mail reports.

The experts found higher levels of general anxiety, social anxiety and depression among students who would have had sex with someone they knew for less than a week.

The study involved 3,900 heterosexual students.

The figures showed that 11 per cent of those surveyed had engaged in casual sex in the last month, the majority of these were men.

Head of the study Dr Bersamin said: "It is premature to conclude that casual sexual encounters pose no harmful psychological risks for young adults.

"The results suggest that among heterosexual college students, casual sex was negatively associated with well-being and positively associated with psychological distress."

The researchers also took gender into account and tried to determine the differences between men and women and the link between mental distress and casual sex.

Previous studies have shown that women respond more negatively to casual sex than men do. This could be based on the double standards in society that "allow" men to have more sexual encounters with a bigger number of partners than women.

In this study, however, gender did not have an effect on how people felt after casual sex.

The study featured in The Journal of Sex Research.