Abstract

Adolescent risky sexual behavior is associated with unprotected sex, unplanned pregnancy, abortion, and contraction of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) such as chlamydia, syphilis, gonorrhea, and HIV/AIDS. During their time of transition to adulthood, late adolescents make decisions about their sexual health that may or may not be motivated by parental (mother and father) sexual risk communication and autonomy support. While the adolescent may be physically independent or semi-independent from his/her parents, parents continue to influence their adolescents through past and present endorsement of certain behaviors. This research examined how parent-sexual risk communication and parental autonomy support may individually and collectively influence the late adolescent's sexual risk behavior and sexual risk knowledge through the adolescent's autonomous motivation. Self-determination theory, a theory of motivation, provided the basis for the research, hypotheses, and conceptual model. A quantitative, cross-sectional, correlational-descriptive, path analysis design was used.

Description

This dissertation has also been disseminated through the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. Dissertation/thesis number: 3490213; ProQuest document ID: 916755033. The author still retains copyright.

Author Details

Bettina Hornbuckle Riley, PhD, RN

Sigma Membership

Zeta Gamma

Type

Dissertation

Format Type

Text-based Document

Study Design/Type

Cross-Sectional

Research Approach

Quantitative Research

Keywords:

Sexual Risk Behavior, Autonomy, Communication

Advisor

Carol J. Dashiff

Degree

PhD

Degree Grantor

The University of Alabama at Birmingham

Degree Year

2011

Rights Holder

All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.

All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.

All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.

Review Type

None: Degree-based Submission

Acquisition

Proxy-submission

Date of Issue

2020-08-28

Full Text of Presentation

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