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If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. Despite the popularity of dating apps, there remain scarce data on the motivations, consequences and their influence on sexual behaviour change in the Australian population. To explore motivations, dating app relationships, unintended consequences and change in sexual behaviour in dating app users at an Australian music festival.
A cross-sectional study design was used. Festival patrons aged 18β30 at a major Australian music festival completed a paper-based survey. Logistic regression was used to identify which factors were associated with an increase in sexual partners since using dating apps. A third of users used them at music festivals A third of participants had used dating apps for more than 2 years Dating app users tended not to discuss sexually transmitted infections STI status with a sexual partner regardless of whether they had met them on an app or not: After adjusting for socio-demographics, those who had an STI after engaging in sexual activity with a person met via a dating app had 2.
Sexual orientation and STI discussions with a new sexual dating app partner were not associated with an increase in dating app partners. Dating app usage is common and users report increased sexual activity, sexual partners and experimentation.
STI discussions with potential partners and condom use remained low regardless of how partners were met and despite an increase in sexual partners since using dating apps. Given the high-risk nature of individuals that utilise dating apps, safe sex discussion, including STIs, pregnancies and condom use should be promoted to improve sexual health outcomes. Online dating has existed for over 20 years now. Initially, dating websites were accessed via computers; however, since smartphones have become ubiquitous in society, increasing numbers of dating applications have become available [ 1 ].
