Using the Health Belief Model to Explain Parents' Participation in Adolescents' At‐Home Sexuality Education Activities

Abstract

The Health Belief Model (HBM) was used to study parents' involvement in six at-home sexuality education activities for nine grade students. These activities are part of Skills for Healthy Relationships: A Program About Sexuality, AIDS, and Other STD (SHR). Some 216 parents, 62% of the population, completed and returned a self-administered questionnaire. Perceived barriers correlated most strongly with lack of parents' involvement in SHR. Additionally, perceived barriers and perceived self-efficacy were the most significant factors differentiating parents involved in SHR at-home activities from those who were uninvolved. Compared with highly involved parents, noninvolved parents were: 1) less confident their children wanted to do the activities with them (F[4,204] = 19.58, p < .0005), 2) less sure of their children's desire to talk with them about sex-related issues (F[4,213] = 7.03, p < .0005), and 3) less certain their AIDS-related facts were current (F[4,213] = 2.39, p = .05). Parents highly involved in SHR reported becoming more comfortable talking with their adolescents about STDs (F[4,205] = 4.04, p = .004) and felt their children talked a little more openly with them about AIDS and STDs (F[4,205] = 2.54, p = .04). In contrast, uninvolved parents reported no changes relative to communicating with their children about sexuality. For these reasons, SHR's inclusion of at-home activities shows promise for increasing parent-adolescent communication about sexuality.

Parents' Plans to Discuss Sexuality with Their Young Children

“…The effect was quite modest (only accounting for 3% of the variance) indicating that there are other factors influencing how effective and comfortable parents are when discussing sexuality education for the first time. These factors may include parents' knowledge about sexual development, the general level of parentchild communication and emotional closeness in the home, their parenting style, and the parents' self-efficacy beliefs (Brock & Beazley, 1995;Burgess & Wurtele, 1998;Hovell et al, 1994;Pluhar et al, 2008).…”

Perceptions of key participants about Botswana adolescents' risks of unplanned pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and HIV: Qualitative findings

“…Guilamo‐Ramos et al () added that maternal communication was associated with adolescent expectancies about whether or not to engage in sexual intercourse. However, parental involvement in sexuality education is lacking because of perceived barriers and low self‐efficacy in communicating about HIV, STIs, and pregnancy with their children (Brock & Beazley, ). Turnbull, van Wersch, and van Schaik () supported the notion of parents as the primary educators in sexuality education and that children want to learn from their parents.…”

ASIAN AMERICAN WOMEN's RETROSPECTIVE REPORTS OF THEIR SEXUAL SOCIALIZATION

“…Despite widespread agreement that parents should be involved in the sexual socialization process, research shows that most adolescents perceive their parents to be infrequent or unwilling participants (Brock & Jennings, 1993; Holland & Ramazanoglu, 1996; Rosenthal & Feldman, 1999). Parents' reluctance to speak with children about sexuality has been attributed to many factors, including both adolescents' and parents' embarrassment or discomfort with the topic (Brock & Beazley, 1995), parents' uncertainty about how to broach such conversations or what sexual information to convey (Brock & Beazley, 1995; Raffaelli, Bogenschneder, & Flood, 1998), and a lack of open communication between parents and children more generally (Jaccard, Dittus, & Gordon, 2000). When sexual communication does occur, parents tend to stress the dangerous and negative outcomes of sexual activity (e.g., pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases) and convey more messages about puberty and sexual morality than they discuss sexual facts or feelings (Brock & Jennings, 1993; Hepburn, 1983; O'Sullivan, Meyer‐Bahlburg, & Watkins, 2001).…”