Beliefs about Sexual Communications between Parents and Their Adolescents in Thai Families

บทคัดย่อ

The objectives of this research were to examine the beliefs about parent-adolescent communication about sexuality between adolescent and their parents in Thai families. Fifty two adolescents studying at a lower secondary school in Chon Buri province and a parent of each (n = 52) were recruited in the study. Similar scales were used for parents and adolescents to measure beliefs about parent-adolescent communication about sexuality. Descriptive statistics, independent t-test and ANOVA were used to analyze data.

It was found that the mean scores of the adolescents’ and their parents’ beliefs about sexual communication were at a moderate level (= 3.25 ± 0.53 and =  3.41 ± 0.71 respectively).  No significant differences were found between adolescents and parents in overall scores (p = .188) and many aspects of beliefs about sexual communication (p = .213-.932 ). However, there was a significant difference between adolescents’ and parents’ belief in one item indicating that adolescents perceived more embarrassed in talking about sexuality than their parents ( t (102) = 1.98 , p = .050 ). There were no significant differences in beliefs about sexual communication by adolescents’ and parents’ backgrounds. Findings of this study can be used to design interventions targeted to change adolescents’ and parents’ underlying beliefs about sexual communication in order to increase the amount and quality of parent-adolescent sexual communications.