Parent-adolescent acculturation discrepancies and Positive Youth Development: Implications for parent-adolescent communication about sexual risk behaviors.
Open AccessSexual health for Latino adolescents needs to be address given the higher rates of pregnancy, STDs and condom non-use among Hispanic youth that are likely related to the lack of information to make fewer risky decisions. This lack of information could be ameliorated with interventions targeting Latino youth with prevention knowledge about strategies to avoid risky sexual behavior, avoid HIV/STD infections, and to have healthy sexuality. Several successful interventions designed to reduce the sexual risk in Hispanic youth have included parent and child involvement in the intervention with the development of new communication skills as a vital component and positive youth development as potential mediators between the acculturation gap and communication skills. This study test the complex relation between number of people living at home, Hispanic or American acculturation discrepancies, family type and age, positive youth development constructs and parent-child communication about sex risk behaviors as well as sexual youth outcomes. Participants were recruited for a community study of a positive youth development intervention in the Greater Washington area. We hypothesized that compromised parent-child communication about sexual risk behavior and subsequent adolescent sex risk behavior would result if either a) parents retain Hispanic cultural orientation at a higher level than the adolescent does or b) adolescents retain the mainstream U.S. cultural orientation at a higher level than the parent does. Findings from this study supports that acculturation gap where parents have a higher level of Hispanic acculturation can affect parent-adolescent communication but this relationship could be mediated by youth connection to family. The acculturation gap where youth are more US acculturated is positively related to parent-adolescent communication and this relation is mediated by adolescent connection to family. Results also confirmed that parent-adolescent communication about sexual risk behavior could shape youth sexual behavior.
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CubillaBatista_gwu_0075A_13811.pdf | 2018-01-16 | Open Access |
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