Using the health belief model to explain parents' participation in adolescents' at-home sexuality education activities.
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.
Brock
G C
GC
Health Education Division, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Beazley
R P
RP
D000293:Adolescent; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001294:Attitude to Health; D003142:Communication; D003469:Culture; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008389:Marketing of Health Services; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009042:Motivation; D009674:Nova Scotia; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012649:Self Concept; D012736:Sex Education; D012725:Sexual Behavior; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires