The Interaction of Attitude, Intention, and Behavior During Sexual Communication

Abstract

Parents need to have a positive attitude in establishing sexual communication with adolescent. Sexual communication in this study is a principal means of transmitting sexual values, beliefs, expectations, and knowledge from parents to adolescent. A representative and eligible sample was randomly obtained with a total of 315 respondents. The respondents of this study were parents (41–50 years old) who had teenagers between the ages of 14 and 17 years, and had to live together for at least 6 months before the survey was conducted. Three instruments were used; scale of attitudes toward sexual communication, intention to engage sexual communication, and sexual communication behavior of parents–adolescents. Based on the results of mediation tests, it shows that parental attitudes influence parent–adolescent sexual communication behavior through the intention to engage in sexual communication (P = 0.013). A positive attitude toward sexual communication is recommended to encourage parents to conduct sexual communication with adolescents to prevent adolescents from engaging in risky sexual behavior.
 Keywords: attitude, intention, risky sexual behavior, sexual communication