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Abstract

Purpose: Adolescents may not receive the comprehensive preventive health messages that they needed to discuss sexual health, substance use, violence, and their co-occurrences with their romantic or sexual partner. The purpose of this study is to determine whether the prior receipt of prevention messages from parents, schools and/or health professionals by sexually experienced adolescents influences their subsequent partner communication of these topics.Methods: This quantitative cross-sectional study uses secondary data with a sample size of 101. Study participants were adolescents (1) between 13 - 17 years old, (2) sexually active and not using protection, (3) prior alcohol or substance use, (4) living in one of the five metropolitan areas in the South, and (5) not concurrently participating in a health-related research study. Findings: Overall, results were mixed between health professionals and parents for increasing the odds of partner communication. The odds of talking to a partner about birth control is almost 4 times as likely if the adolescent received a message from parents and health professionals. Prior communication with parents about abstinence, birth control, pregnancy, alcohol, and drug use influenced adolescent partner conversations. Health professionals provided the least number of health messages; however, when an adolescent received a message from a health professional, they were statistically significant for increasing the likelihood of talking to a romantic or sexual partner about the same topic. Additionally, the odds were significantly higher when all three sources communicated with an adolescent (as a combined measure) were included in the model. Implications: Adolescents were talking to their romantic or sexual partners most about topics that parents and health professionals discussed with them. The development of more tools and resources may be helpful in reducing annual STI rates, substance use and abuse, and intimate partner violence or sexual abuse in this population. Additionally, having all three sources deliver health messages to adolescents was more influential than the receipt from one or two sources for family planning, pregnancy, STIs, birth control, and alcohol.

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