Background: Because of the profound impact on morbidity and mortality, adolescent risk behaviors are a major public health concern in the United States. Research suggests that risk behaviors, including sexual activity, substance use and violence, covary and interventions targeting one risk behavior may affect multiple risk behaviors.
Objective: To determine whether certain subgroups of adolescents were more likely to have reduced rates of sexual initiation, expectation to engage in sexual intercourse, substance use, or participation in violence after participation in a theory-based intervention designed to decrease rates of sexual initiation. Perceived parental monitoring and perceived peer norms were hypothesized to be moderator variables.
Study design: African American seventh-grade students (N=211) were randomized into two treatment groups, the intervention group and the comparison group. The school-based intervention was based on the Theory of Possible Selves. The intervention met during health education classes once per week for a total of eight weeks. Data were collected at baseline and at three-month follow-up.
Results: Using hierarchical multiple regression, there were no statistically significant differences between treatment groups when examining intervention effect by moderator variable for each outcome, including sexual initiation, expectation to engage in sexual intercourse, substance use, and participation in violence.
Conclusions: Although analyses indicate that the intervention significantly lowered expectation to engage in sexual activity at three-month follow-up, participants with lower perceived parental monitoring or higher perceived peer norms for risk were no more likely to show intervention effect then their peers with higher parental monitoring or lower perceived peer norms.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participants will be able to:
Keywords: Adolescent Health, Theory
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.