A Computer-Based Parent/Adolescent HIV Communication Intervention for Latinos

The purpose of this study is to examine the efficacy of a brief culturally appropriate and theory-based parental communication intervention designed to improve parent-adolescent sexual communication and reduce adolescent sexual risk behavior.

Latino adolescents are at high risk for contracting HIV/AIDS. Few individual and even fewer parent interventions have been developed to address this persistent problem. Parent communication interventions provide an opportunity to enhance individual adolescent based approaches. However, there is a need for theory and culture based interventions focused on Latino parents. The program implemented in this study was designed for parents, to indirectly help reduce the health risks of their adolescents, including unintended pregnancy and STDs, including HIV/AIDS. The study has three aims regarding the examination of whether the computer based parental communication intervention is 1) associated with a greater increase in parents' comfort with, and quantity of communication; 2) associated with a greater increase in adolescents' intentions to abstain from sex and/or avoid unprotected intercourse and decreased self-reported intercourse and unprotected intercourse; and 3) feasible and acceptable to Spanish dominant Latino parents and their adolescent children.

• HIV/AIDS
• STD
• Pregnancy

• Experimental: Computer based intervention
  Participants receive content about adolescent sexual risk and HIV prevention, strategies to support sexual specific communication and parent-adolescent communication in general.
  Intervention: Behavioral: Computer-based parent-adolescent HIV communication
• No Intervention: Wait list control group
  Participants will receive the computer based intervention at 3 months follow-up

Inclusion Criteria:

• Latino parents who have adolescents 14 to 17 years of age
• Spanish dominant or bilingual