Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Body Art on Campus

A new survey finds that more than half of college students have some type of body piercing nearly a quarter are tattooed. The concern comes with the finding that 17 percent of the students reported a medical complication from the piercing.
More than 450 students from Pace University in Pleasantville, N.Y. completed the survey. The students were asked about their body piercings and tattoos. They were also asked about complications associated with the body art.

Researchers at Pace University say they came up with the study idea after noticing how common piercing and tattooing were among the students. They found 51 percent of students had body piercing and 23 percent had a tattoo. Male athletes were more likely to have a tattoo than those not involved in sports. As for body piercing, in the female students, the navel was the body site most often pierced. For the sake of the study, researchers did not consider women's earlobes as a piercing spot. The second most common piercing spot in female students was in a part of their ear other than the lobe. In the male students, the most common body site pierced was the ear.

Seventeen percent of students report some medical complication from a piercing. The complications include bacterial infection, bleeding and injury or tearing at the site. Researchers say that they did not have any medical complications reported from students who were tattooed. However, they point out that it might be too early to detect hepatitis B, hepatitis C or human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) contracted through the tattooing procedure.


SOURCE: Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 2002;77:29-34

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