Intervenciones con padres de familia para modificar el comportamiento sexual en adolescentes - Interventions Involving Parents in Order to Impact Adolescent Sexual Behaviour

This Spanish language article was prepared by Salud Pública México (Public Health Mexico) and published in its March-April 2011 journal. The objective of this study was to examine how educational interventions that incorporate parent participation actually affect and modify adolescent sexual behaviour. Salud Pública performed a search of 5 electronic databases for articles published between 2002 and 2009 that evaluated educational interventions involving parents. Nineteen articles evaluated 15 interventions that met all the criteria for inclusion. They found a significant increase in adolescents' intentions to postpone sexual intercourse and use contraceptives, a reduction in self-reported sexual relations, and an increase in condom use. Positive results were also found for individual protective factors, such as knowledge and attitude, and family factors, such as parent-child communication, perception of rules, monitoring/supervision by parents, and family support. The authors conclude that educational interventions that include parents support healthy sexual behaviour among adolescents. Parental participation can be included in any intervention aimed at adolescents.

Programmes that were looked at are located in the southern United States and the Bahamas, and deal with issues ranging from HIV prevention to making good choices. Many of the organisations work with Latino and African American families and children.
 
The article explains the researchers' methodology and results, as well as the interventions they studied, including a table that lists the strategies and activities employed by the different organisations. A brief sampling includes:

• Prevention of risky sexual behaviour and addictions in adolescents through family support groups, positive parenting practice (role plays), parent-child communication, family visits, and multi-family sessions;
• Prevention of HIV through parent training as education on the subject;
• HIV prevention through direct work with youth on decision-making, communication, negotiation, abstinence, and safe sex, including condom use. Games, discussions, homework, and videos complement dynamic parent-child role-plays;
• Prevention of violence, school delinquency, drug use, and unprotected sex by developing the cognitive-behavioural skills in adolescents; and
• Promotion of self-sufficiency and expectations for parent-child communication about sexuality through communication skills building, information on adolescent development, HIV prevention, and in-house work using lectures, group discussions, role-plays, and videos in parents-only and parent-child sessions.