Effects of a parent-child communications intervention on young adolescents' risk for early onset of sexual intercourse

Context: The quality of parent-child communications about sex and sexuality appears to be a strong determinant of adolescents' sexual behavior. Evalua tions of interventions aimed at improving such communications can help iden tify strategies for preventing early onset of sexual behavior. Methods: A school-based abstinence-only curriculum was implemented among 35 1 middle school students, who were randomly assigned to receive either the classroom instruction alone or the classroom instruction enhanced by five h omework assignments designed to be completed by the students and their pare nts. An experimental design involving pretest and posttest surveys was used to assess the relative efficacy of the curriculum delivered with and witho ut the parent-child homework assignments. Results: In analyses of covariance controlling for baseline scores, immedia tely after the intervention, adolescents who received the enhanced curricul um reported greater self-efficacy for refusing high-risk behaviors than did those who received the classroom instruction only (mean scores. 16.8 vs. 1 5.8). They also reported less intention to have sex before finishing high s chool (0.4 vs. 0.5), and more frequent parent-child communications about pr evention (1.6 vs. 1.0) and sexual consequences (1.6 vs. 1.1). In all signif icant comparisons, the direction of the findings favored adolescents who re ceived the enhanced curriculum. Dose-response relationships supported the f indings. Conclusions: Parent-child homework assignments designed to reinforce and su pport school-based prevention curricula can have an immediate impact on sev eral key determinants of sexual behavior among middle school adolescents.