Family Communication about Sex and Adolescents' Sexual Behavior: Incarcerated Males' and Female' Perspectives

Background:
Families influence community adolescents' sexual behavior, but little is known about families' might impact on incarcerated teens.

Objective:
To examine incarcerated adolescents' family sexual health communication and it's association with sexual risk behaviors.

Method:
Adolescents from a juvenile correctional facility, participated in individual, semi-structured interviews about sexual education and sexual history. The data were analyzed to understand participants' family communication about sex and their sexual practices.

Result:
Thirty-eight adolescents (18 females, 20 males; 32% Hispanic, 68% non-Hispanic 24% Black, 24% Caucasian, 32% mixed race, 20% other/unknown race; Mean age = 16.8, SD = .96; age range 15 - 18) participated. Of 35 sexually experienced participants (16 females, 19 males), half the males (9/19) and two-thirds of females (10/16) reported discussions of sex with family. Frequent topics for males were the mechanics of sex and condom use; frequent topics for females were STIs and delaying sex. Nearly three-quarters of males (7/10) who reported no family sex communication did not use a condom at sexual debut and approximately half (4/9) who reported family sex communication did not use a condom at sexual debut. Ninety percent of males (9/10) who reported no family communication used substances during sex with their most recent partner, compared with only about half (4/9) of those who did report family communication. Among females, those who discussed sex with family were less likely to report a pregnancy than those who did not (20% (2/10) vs 83% (5/6). Around half of the males, regardless of family communication, reported having caused a pregnancy.

Conclusion:
Communication appears to have a protective influence on males' condom use and substance use and on females' pregnancy history.

Implications:
Providers should consider how family communication operates with each gender when designing STI intervention programs. This formative qualitative study should be followed-up with more extensive quantitative studies using larger samples.