Date of Award

Spring 2024

Document Type

Project – Full Written

Degree Name

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

Committee Chair

Abby Garlock

Abstract

In 2018, 68 million people in the United States were infected with a sexually transmitted infection. Of those 68 million, 26 million cases were newly diagnosed, and of that 26 million, half were youth aged 15-24 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2022a). The approaches to educating our youth about sexual health are inconsistent, leading to misconceptions about the dangers associated with risky sexual behavior. However, parents have the upper hand in discussing sexual health information with their children by being the child’s first contact and source of information. Teens who report talking with their parents about sex are more likely to delay having sex and to use condoms when they do have sex (CDC, 2019). This project provided an evidence-based educational video to parents on the importance of parental communication with adolescents about sex and provided specific communication methods, techniques, and strategies parents can use to open the lines of communication with their children. The results of this project were positive. Each objective measured increased from baseline. Parental comfort had the greatest increase by 28%. Knowledge of the importance of sexual communication increased by 4%. Parental willingness improved by 11%. The results of this project indicate the need for continued projects to educate parents on parent-adolescent sexual health communication. Future areas of focus could address issues surrounding parental discomfort to further support increases in parental willingness and engagement in parent-adolescent sexual health communication.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

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