How Mexican parents talk to their teens about sexual and reproductive health?

Objective: To identify attitudes, beliefs and perceived control of parents of teenagers to communicate sexual and reproductive health.

Methods: A qualitative study was conducted after an educational intervention was given to parents of teenagers studying 8th grade in order to improve their efficacy to talk about sexuality and contraception. Subsequently two focus groups were selected, one with parents who attended the workshops and another one who didn't; we used question guides containing the dimensions of the Planned Behavior theoretical model of Icek Ajzen.

Results: The two focus groups were composed mostly by mothers. Overall, parents said they strongly agreed that was very important to talk to their children about these issues, but they felt unprepared to do so. Among the reasons mentioned for not talking about contraception was they felt embarrassed talking about it. In the no intervention group, we observed multiple gender reasons related to not giving same information to boys and girls: “...since she is a girl, it is her responsibility to protect herself from pregnancy"; “… I have boys and I have not told them anything, but condoms”. When we questioned the intervention group about their worries if their child were already having sex, most answered that their main concern was protection "...because if he/she is already having sex […], I worry if he/she is protected against diseases or pregnancy...".

Conclusions: In the group that attended the workshops, a greater intention to continue talking with their children about contraception was observed, but they did not felt very confident to do so yet.