Mother's and father's monitoring is more important than parental social support regarding sexual risk behaviour among 15-year-old adolescents

ABSTRACT

Background and objectives There is strong evidence that parental processes such as monitoring and social support play an important role with regard to sexual risk behaviour among adolescents. We wished to explore the influence of both parents’ monitoring and support on sexual risk behaviour among adolescent boys and girls.

Methods Questionnaires concerning sexual risk behaviour, parental support and parental monitoring were administered to 15-year-old students (n = 1343; 628 boys). Crude and adjusted logistic regression models were used to explore the effect of parents’ monitoring and support on sexual risk behaviour among adolescent boys and girls.

Results Parental monitoring was more strongly associated with sexual risk behaviour than parental social support. In particular, less monitoring by the father was significantly linked to early first sexual intercourse among girls and to not using a condom during last intercourse among boys. Less monitoring by the mother was associated only with not using a condom at last intercourse among boys.

Conclusion Parental monitoring, even more than parental support, may delay the onset of sexual activity and increase the frequency of condom use among adolescents. The effects of mothers’ and fathers’ parenting processes on sexual risk behaviour of adolescents differ. Paternal monitoring affects condom use among boys, and initiation of sexual activity in girls.

Keywords:

• Parental monitoring
• Parental social support
• Sexual risk behaviour
• Adolescence

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and the writing of the paper.

This publication was supported by the Agency of the Slovak Ministry of Education for the Structural Funds of the EU, under project ITMS: 26220120058 (40%), ESF CZ.1.07/2.3.00/20.0063 SODEZZ, and by the Slovak Research and Development Agency under the contract No. APVV-0032-11.