Adolescents and parental caregivers as lay health advisers in a community-based risk reduction intervention for youth: baseline data from Teach One, Reach One

Abstract

The purpose of the current study is to describe the demographic, behavioral, and psychosocial characteristics of adolescent and caregiver lay health advisers (LHAs) participating in an intervention designed to reduce risk behaviors among rural African-American adolescents. Teach One, Reach One integrates constructs from the Theory of Planned Behavior and Social Cognitive Theory. It acknowledges that changing the sexual behaviors of African-American adolescents requires changing one's knowledge, attitudes, normative beliefs about the behavior of peers, and self-efficacy regarding adolescent sexual behavior, parent–teen communication about sex, and healthy dating relations among adolescents. Study participants completed baseline questionnaires assessing demographics and psychosocial determinants (knowledge, attitudes, perceived social norms, and self-efficacy) of sexual behaviors. Sixty-two adolescent and caregiver dyads participated. Caregivers included biological parents, legal guardians, or other parental figures. Strengths and areas in need of improvement were determined using median splits. Few adolescents had initiated sex. Their strengths included high levels of open parent–teen communication; positive attitudes and normative beliefs regarding both sex communication and healthy dating relationships; and high knowledge and self-efficacy for healthy dating behaviors. Areas needing improvement included low knowledge, unfavorable attitudes, poor normative beliefs, and low self-efficacy regarding condom use. Caregiver strengths included positive attitudes, normative beliefs, and self-efficacy for sex communication; positive attitudes and self-efficacy for condom use; and low acceptance of couple violence. Areas needing improvement included low levels of actual communication about sex and low knowledge about effective communication strategies and condom use. The current study highlights the value of assessing baseline characteristics of LHAs prior to intervention implementation, as it enables a better understanding of the key characteristics necessary for planning and implementing interventions, as well as engaging in targeted training activities.

Social Media Use and Sexual Risk Reduction Behavior Among Minority Youth

“…Finally, consistent with findings from Ritchwood et al (2016), it is clear from the data that knowledge about condoms remains an area of concern. A small portion of this sample did not consider condoms to be a form of birth control.…”

Predictors of Caregiver Communication About Reproductive and Sexual Health and Sensitive Sex Topics

“…There are a number of interventions aimed at improving PTCS and recent reviews have suggested that those that include caregivers are more effective than those that included either caregivers or youth only (see Akers et al, 2011;Sutton et al, 2014, for review). The Teach One, Reach One intervention, for example, contains both group sessions for caregivers and youth separately, as well as collectively to reinforce training and learning (Dave et al, 2016). More research, however, is needed to determine whether safe sex interventions for rural African American youth that employ caregivers should place emphasis on fostering positive attitudes and building self-efficacy related to PTCS, especially as it relates to sensitive sex topics.…”

“…Both caregivers and youth were initially offered $10 each for completing the survey; however, this amount was increased to $30 over the baseline time period to address recruitment challenges experienced in certain counties. Additional details regarding recruitment and training for the intervention study have been reported elsewhere, as the current article focuses only on baseline data (Corbie-Smith et al, 2010;Corbie-Smith et al, 2011;Dave et al, 2016;.…”

Prevalência e fatores associados à violência no namoro entre adolescentes de escola pública

“…Houve associação entre a vitimização física e psicológica, respectivamente, com a maior escolaridade paterna (ensino médio completo ou mais) e menor escolaridade materna (ensino fundamental incompleto). Pesquisa realizada com adolescentes afro-americanos evidenciou que cuidadores com maior escolaridade e mais esclarecidos sobre as consequências da violência no namoro estimulavam o desenvolvimento de atitudes positivas, relações de namoro saudáveis e baixa aceitação da violência (17) .…”