CHICAGO, Feb. 8 (AScribe Newswire) -- Low-income African American teen girls in Chicago continue to be at high risk for contracting HIV, but the risk decreases when their mothers teach them about the dangers of the disease, according to a new study at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
"African American adolescents are more likely to delay early initiation of sexual activities if monitored by their mothers," said Barbara Dancy, professor of public health, mental health and administrative nursing in the UIC College of Nursing and primary researcher of the study.
Mothers learned about HIV over a 12-week period through the Mother/Daughter HIV Risk Reduction intervention, taught by UIC research teams.
Topics consisted of sexual development; how the female and male reproductive systems function; sexually transmitted illnesses; HIV transmission, stages, risks and testing; and learning and practicing skills to reduce the risk of HIV.
While the curriculum primarily focused on sexual abstinence, it did provide information on how to correctly use male and female condoms.
Once the training was completed, every mother was responsible for teaching a portion of the curriculum in which she felt most comfortable.
"A sense of self-efficacy to refuse sex and behavioral intention to refuse sex interact to influence sexual abstinence.
To enhance mothers' coaching and guidance, the curriculum provided joint mother/daughter homework assignments and encouraged mothers to request daughters to sign agreements to practice sexual abstinence.
Dancy determined the effectiveness of the Mother/Daughter HIV Risk Reduction program by comparing it to two other controlled interventions: the Mother/Daughter Health Promotion intervention, where mothers taught their daughters what they had learned from health experts about choosing healthy foods and activities (62 of the 262 girls were included in the study), and the Health Expert HIV Risk Reduction intervention.
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