Parent Communication and Sexual Risk Among African Americans

Abstract

African American adolescents and young adults disproportionately experience adverse sexual health outcomes, including HIV, other sexually transmitted infections, and unintended pregnancy. Despite the diversity of the African American population, many studies of sexual risk are limited to inner-city and clinic samples. The purpose was to examine the influence of parent-teen sexual risk communication on the sexual risk attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of 488 African American college students from a historically Black university and document the psychometric properties of the Parent-Teen Sexual Risk Communication Scale (PTSRC-III) when used with this population. The PTSRC-III demonstrated excellent internal reliability and construct validity across all four parent-teen communication dyad categories (e.g., mother-son, mother-daughter, father-son, father-daughter). PTSRC was associated with students' reports of more conservative sexual attitudes and beliefs and greater perceived ease of sexual communication with partners. PTSRC with mothers was also associated with fewer sexual risk behaviors and pregnancies among the female students.