Mother-Daughter Communication about Sexuality in a Clinical Sample of Hispanic Adolescent Girls

Mother-daughter communication about sexuality within minority families has received little research attention at a time of increasing prevalence rates of adolescent HIV infection in these groups. Even less is known about communication in families with psychiatrically disturbed adolescents. As part of an HIV-intervention study, 110 adolescent girls (ages 13-18) and their mothers completed questionnaires assessing communication patterns and adolescent sexual behavior. Reported quality of general mother-daughter communication was more useful in predicting onset of sexual experiences than aspects of later sexual experiences. Communication about sexuality, specifically, however, was not related to adolescents’ reported sexual behavior. Our findings emphasize the need to address sex education requirements at relatively young ages and to consider the range of information sources available to girls in communicating risk-prevention messages.