Adolescent Sexual Health: Literature Review

NeShama J Bonneau
Hlth 634 B01
September 20, 2017
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Introduction

The purpose of this literature review is to identify the need for Equip and Empower. This health

communication intervention addresses family planning and sexual health among adolescents globally.

Equip and Empower is an online support community that is designed to provide support to parents

through forums, blog posts, and intimate email and chat rooms. This review is organized into 3 parts:

introduction, body of evidence, and summary and conclusions. The introduction stems to properly

identify the why behind Equip and Empower and how the organization is attempting to make a

difference through the health communication. The body of evidence aims to present past and current

literature on the topic of family planning and sexual health among pre-teens and teenagers. The body

will summarize the premise and methodologies that each researcher presented in their work.

Researched literature will be compared against one another to show connections or the lack thereof.

The summary and conclusions section will summarize the main contributions of relevant supporting

articles and identify the significance to family planning and sexual health. This section will also explain

the differences in the results and conclusions among research articles.

The literature will not include political research regarding family planning and sexual health of

adolescents. The literature review will conclude by identifying the link between the actual health

intervention need and Equip and Empowers efforts. Articles utilized in this review included topics of

adolescent health, parental support, social media in health promotion, adolescent sexual behavior,

evidence and gaps in adolescent health, adolescent cognitive development, parental knowledge, and

statistics in adolescent health in United States and United Kingdom. Eight of the researched articles are

peer reviewed and two are professional reports. Any research that was more than 8 years old was

excluded.

Body of Evidence
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The first article is Internet-based peer support for parents: A systematic integrative review. The

second article is Interventions Using New Digital Media to Improve Adolescent Sexual Health: A

systematic review. The third article is Adolescents and Family Planning: What the Evidence Shows. All

three reviews agree that unique measures must be taken to effectively meet adolescents needs. The

first two review articles address the need for internet peer support for parents and adolescents.

Internet-based peer support for parents: A systematic integrative review demonstrates that the main

parental outcomes of internet based support are informative and emotional support. Researchers also

discovered that parents felt a sense of enjoyment as they interacted with one another through the

internet platform.1 This article identified the outcomes associated with different parenting situations

that adolescents may face such as living with both parents, only a mother, or only a father. 1

Interventions Using New Digital Media to Improve Adolescent Sexual Health: A systematic review

focused on new digital media platforms for sexual health interventions among adolescents. The research

revealed that social media platforms expose new tools for engaging the youth in sexual health

promotion and risk reduction. 2 This research also addressed the amount of internet usage among young

people in China, United States, and South Africa. This article reviewed published studies showing the

impact of the internet as a platform for adolescent sexual health intervention. Multiple studies within

the research demonstrated a significant impact of interventions on youth behaviors. 2

Adolescents and Family Planning: What the Evidence Shows addresses the reproductive barriers

that adolescents face such as sociocultural and structural barriers that prevent them from effective

family planning. The goal of the research was to bring attention to the lack of adolescent family planning

information and services. 3 This reference, unlike the first two, does not address social media or any

technological platform as a method of reaching the adolescent population or their parents.

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The next 5 articles utilized in this literature review are theoretical. The first article, Sexual Health

Promotion on Social Networking Sites: A Process Evaluation of the FaceSpace Project, emphasizes the

importance of addressing health issues in young people. The researchers report the findings from the

evaluation of a reach and engagement social media project titled, The FaceSpace Project. 4 This sexual

health promotion project targeted young adults ages 16-29 years. 4

The second article, Parental Support and Knowledge and Adolescents Sexual Health: Testing

Two Mediational Models in a National Dutch Sample, investigates the associations between parental

support and parental knowledge of adolescents whereabouts and sexual experience and health. The

study reveals that having a supportive family and environment positively correlate with healthy

adolescent sexual development. 5

The third article, Correlates and Consequences of Parent-Teen Incongruence in Reports of Teens

Sexual Experience, used the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to address factors

associated with incongruence between parents and adolescents reports of teen sexual experiences.

The study also addressed the consequences of inaccurate parental knowledge of adolescent sexual

behaviors. 6 To go beyond the simple questions of sexual engagement, researchers analyzed whether

adolescents are engaging in healthier or risky behaviors based on parental involvement. 6

The fourth article, Day-to-Day Inconsistency in Parent Knowledge: Links with Youth Health and

Parents Stress, investigates how inconsistent parenting is linked to youth health. The article includes

global reports on youth self-reported risky behavior, their psychological well-being, and the parents

stress levels. 7 The researchers were able to identify that inconsistencies in parent knowledge positively

linked to risky behavior and physical health problems through descriptive statistics. 7

The fifth article, Mothers and fathers monitoring is more important than parental social

support regarding sexual risk behaviour among 15-year-old adolescents, uses results from
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questionnaires administered to 15-year-old students concerning sexual risk behavior, parental support,

and parental monitoring. 8 This article included analyses concerning the parental monitoring and

support from the adolescents mothers and fathers. Less parental monitoring and support was

associated with early onset of sexual behavior among girls, while less parental monitoring by mothers

was associated with early sexual behavior among boys. 8

The second group of sources is comprised of professional reports that have collected and

compiled pertinent data on the issue of adolescent health. In the United Kingdom, there is an

Association for Young Peoples Health or AYPH. This association is on the national agenda of Public

Health England. The AYPH recognizes adolescent ages as a time of increased health risk, societal

pressure, personal vulnerability, and lack of information. Providing support during this age will lead to

major benefits years down the road. In 2012, about 28 out of 1,000 young women under the age of 18

became pregnant in England and Wales. 9 There is a great deal of work to be done to ensure that young

peoples needs are addressed. 9

To further elaborate on the need for Equip and Empowers health communication effort, the

Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has done extensive research on the importance of

addressing parental acknowledgement of adolescent sexual behaviors. The CDC has noted that teens

whose parents know where they are and the people they are with (monitoring) are less likely to engage

in sex at an early age. 10 They also report that teens who talk with their parents regarding sex are more

likely to delay having sex and to use condoms when they do engage in sexual activities. 10 Each of the

references listed above support the need for a health communication effort that bridges the

communication between parents and their adolescent children. All utilized article reviews focus on

adolescent sexual health. Some may focus more on the aspect of parental involvement while others

contribute from the aspect of the adolescent in the digital media age. They all provide evidence to

suggest that there is room for improving the sexual health behaviors of adolescents globally.
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Summary and Conclusion

Each of the references contributed adequate and beneficial information in helping to effectively

develop this health communication program. All the reviewed articles state the need for continued,

supplementary research. Due the rapid evolution of technology, there will be continued challenges

when it comes to rigorous research studies using technology-based interventions for the youth. 1,2,4

The most relevant sources included Internet-based peer support for parents: A systematic

integrative review, Interventions Using New Digital Media to Improve Adolescent Sexual Health: A

systematic review, Correlates and Consequences of Parent-Teen Incongruence in Reports of Teens Sexual

Experience, Day-to-Day Inconsistency in Parent Knowledge: Links with Youth Health and Parents Stress,

and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Although each article had differences, the relevant

sources concluded: there is a need for a digital presence in adolescent health promotion efforts,

internet technology as a communication method for support reduces the barriers and increases the

reach of the potential intervention, and accurate parental knowledge is the first step to effective

communication with our adolescents. The long-standing research ability of the CDC proved it to be

beneficial to the efforts this health intervention. There are many adolescent health programs that the

CDC oversees which are perfect for communication intervention evaluation efforts. They also have a

parent forum that emulates a portion of what Equip and Empower attempts to do within the online

community. Utilizing the technological platforms that we are in possession of can lead to healthier

communication between parents and their adolescent children regarding sexual behaviors.