Sex-based communication among Hispanic HIV+ mothers and their adolescent daughters

Discussions about sexuality among HIV+ mothers and adolescent daughters in Puerto Rico have been understudied. Parents are in unique position to help socialize adolescents into healthy sexuality. The purpose of this study is to explore factors that impact sex-based communication between mother-daughters.

Twenty-two HIV+ mothers were recruited from Immunology Clinics at Bayamón, Ponce and San Juan. All participants completed two self-administered questionnaires prior the focus groups. Three-separated focus groups were conducted using Krueger methodology. Ten structured questions were developed from the literature on sexual communication. All qualitative analysis was conducted in Atlas Ti. SPSS v15.0 was used for descriptive statistics.

Mean age of participants was 41 years. Only 9% were legally married. Around 82% experience domestic violence, 86% used alcohol, 86% smokes, 35% experience crack, 54% were unemployed, and had first sexual intercourse at mean age of 15 years. Factors that impact communication in this group were: family structure, self-esteem, previous sexual abuse, age for discussing sex-based topics and disclosure of HIV status to daughters and family members.

Parenting and communication skills can be affected among HIV+ mothers and their daughters due in part to demographics characteristics. The emerging factors identified support the value of tailored interventions to facilitate sexual communication between mothers-daughters. These findings reinforce the importance of communication between parents and adolescents in the prevention of STD/HIV and pregnancy. This study was supported by NCRR 1-U54RR019507.