Poster #150 - Relationships between parental monitoring, parental nurturance and risky sexual behaviors and outcomes

• In Event: 3-053 - Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

Teen risky sexual behavior is an important public health concern, with over 220,000 infants born to teen mothers in 2015 (Boonstra, 2002) and over 4 million sexually transmitted infections (STI) occurring yearly in adolescents and young adults (Satterwhite et al., 2012). Family serves as an important influence in adolescent risky sexual behaviors and outcomes. Because adolescents spend more time with peers and less time at home, parents are in a delicate position to encourage autonomy while also providing adequate monitoring in a nurturing environment. As such, adolescents whose parents have knowledge of their child’s whereabouts and are involved in their activities are less likely to engage in risky sexual behaviors that may result in an unwanted pregnancy or STI (Roche & Leventhal, 2009). Furthermore, youth who describe greater warmth from their parents report fewer risky sexual behaviors (Gardner, et al., 2012). Therefore, a high level of nurturance with either parent can be protective against negative behavioral outcomes, including risky sexual behavior in adolescence. However, few studies have examined how both mother and father relationships influence adolescent risky sexual behavior, and whether these effects vary by adolescent gender.
The present study uses a sample of 1597 youth (50% male; 62% African American, 36% White) from a larger study of adolescent health. At average age 16, youth reported parental monitoring (3 subscales: knowledge, disclosure, permissiveness), as well as maternal and paternal nurturance. At average age 19, sexually active youth reported frequency of contraceptive use, number of sexual partners and experience with pregnancy or STI. Regression analyses tested the effects of age 16 parental monitoring and nurturance on age 19 risky sexual behaviors and outcomes. Interaction terms tested the moderating role of gender in these relationships. Gender, race, parent education, household income and child age were included as covariates.
Results indicated that greater parental knowledge was linked with fewer sexual partners (β=-.15, p<.05), and greater parental permissiveness predicted decreased likelihood of experiencing a pregnancy (OR=.66; 95% CI [.48, .92], p = .01). Additionally, youth reporting greater nurturance from fathers had fewer sexual partners (β = -.08, p < .05) and were less likely to experience a STI (OR=.94; 95% CI [.90, .99], p = .01). The interaction of child disclosure and child gender on the use of contraception differed by child gender; females who engaged in more disclosure with their parents reported more frequent contraceptive use (β = .23, p < .001), but disclosure was not related to contraceptive use for males (β = .02, ns).
These findings demonstrate that nurturance from fathers, in addition to parental monitoring, can be protective against multiple sexual partners and STI. Furthermore, males and females differ in how some aspects of monitoring affect their risky sexual behavior. Future studies should examine how mothers and fathers each differ in their amount or quality of monitoring, and how this impacts both male and female adolescents’ sexual behavior.

Authors

• Catheryn Orihuela, University of Alabama at Birmingham
  Presenting Author

• Sylvie Mrug, University of Alabama at Birmingham
  Non-Presenting Author

• Susan Davies, University of Alabama at Birmingham
  Non-Presenting Author

• Marc Elliott, RAND Corporation
  Non-Presenting Author

• David Knight, University of Alabama at Birmingham
  Non-Presenting Author

• Susan Tortolero Emery, University of Texas Health Science Center
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sari Reisner, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health
  Non-Presenting Author

• Mark Schuster, Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine
  Non-Presenting Author