Parents’ disapproval of sex may cut kids’ STD risk

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Teenage girls who think their parents disapprove of their having sex may have a lower risk of sexually transmitted diseases as young adults, a new study suggests.

Compared with their peers, girls who believed their parents would not want them to have sex were 16 percent less likely to have an STD—chlamydia, gonorrhea or Trichomoniasis—6 years later, according to the study. The same was not true, however, of teenage boys.

The findings appear to be the first to show a connection between teens’ perceptions of their parents’ opinions on sex and their risk of sexually transmitted infections years later—at least among girls.

The implication, according to the study authors, is that parents should make their views on sex clear to their children.

And, despite the gender gap in the findings, that means talking with boys too, said lead researcher Dr. Carol A. Ford of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “We don’t understand that finding,” she said of the lack of parental influence on their sons’ STD risk. “It was surprising to us.”

But, Ford noted that, the study did look at a fairly narrow outcome—the risk of three STDs several years out. Had the researchers looked at STD risk in adolescence, for instance, the findings overall may have been different, she pointed out.

The research, published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, included nearly 11,600 U.S. students who were surveyed in middle school or high school, then re-interviewed and tested for each of the three STDs 6 years later.

Overall, just over 6 percent of participants tested positive for an STD at follow-up. Among females, those who 6 years earlier had said their parents disapproved of teen sex had a lower infection rate.

In addition, students with higher grade point averages had a lower STD risk as young adults than those with poorer grades. Similar to the findings on parents’ influence, however, the sway of academic performance was stronger among females than males.

The study focused on teens’ perceptions of their parents’ views on sex, and not parents’ professed opinions. Past research, Ford and her colleagues note, has found that teenagers often misinterpret their parents’ attitudes on the matter.

The question of how to effectively communicate with teenagers about sex “is something that every parent wants to have answered,” Ford said.

One guiding point, she said, is to “talk with them rather than at them.”

Parents who object to teen sex can also discourage their children from dating or having a steady relationship at a young age, or from dating someone substantially older, according to Ford.

None of the other variables the study examined—including teenagers’ commitment to religion or feelings of “connection” to family or school—showed an effect on long-term STD risk.

SOURCE: Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, July 2005. 

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