Parent-adolescent relationships and adolescent sexuality: Closeness, communication, and comfort among diverse U.S. adolescent samples

In this study we examined the role of American adolescents’ perceptions of both maternal and paternal parent-adolescent closeness, communication about sexuality, and comfort with sexual communication in a diverse sample of adolescents’ sexual attitudes and behaviors. Participants included 672 adolescents (231 males, 413 females, 28 unreported) in the 9th to 12th grades of 3 public urban and suburban high schools, of varying socioeconomic status, approximately 1/3 each of African-American, Caucasian, and Hispanic. Maternal variables significantly explained modest amounts of variance in sexual outcomes; paternal variables were less significant. Subgroup patterns revealed both similarities and uniqueness, in some groups explaining relatively large proportions of variance.