A preliminary examination of adolescent girls' perceptions of the parental knowledge of their boyfriends.

STUDY OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to describe adolescent girls' perceptions of their parents' contact with and knowledge of the girls' boyfriends. A second objective was to determine if knowledge was related to demographic characteristics of the girls or aspects of the relationship with their boyfriend. DESIGN: Cross-sectional analysis of data from an interview with adolescent girls enrolled in a longitudinal study. SETTING: Urban adolescent medicine clinic. PARTICIPANTS: Adolescent girls (n = 109) with a mean age of 17.6 (range 14.9-19.3 yr). Eighty percent were African-American and 20% were Caucasian. RESULTS: Most girls reported that their parents had some contact (either in person or on the phone) with their boyfriends. Thirteen girls reported that their parents did not know their boyfriends well, 40 reported that their parents knew their boyfriends somewhat, and 56 reported that their parents knew their boyfriends well. Age, race, and sexual experience were not related to how well the parents knew the boyfriend. Girls who had been involved with their boyfriends longer, believed that their relationship would last longer, were more satisfied, were more likely to tell their boyfriends private information and were more likely to describe their parents as knowing their boyfriends well. CONCLUSIONS: These results provide an initial description of girls' perceptions of their parents' relationships with their boyfriends. It would be important to understand how to utilize the information regarding these parental-boyfriend relationships to further adolescent girls' development of healthy (both psychologically and physically) relationships.

Adolescent girl's coping with an STD. Not enough problem solving and too much self-blame.

STUDY OBJECTIVE: Approximately three million teenagers are infected with an STD each year. The ways in which an adolescent girl copes with an STD may have implications for future risk and for psychological adjustment. The purpose of the current study was to compare whether coping with an STD was similar to coping with other stressors. SETTING: Urban, hospital-based adolescent medicine clinic. DESIGN AND PARTICIPANTS: Sixty-seven girls with a mean age of 15.9 (sexual debut was 13.8) yr completed the KIDCOPE in response to both an STD acquisition and an interpersonal stressor within the previous 6 months. RESULTS: Problem solving was used less often, and self-blame was used more often, in response to an STD acquisition. Frequency of use of self-blame was not correlated with perceived helpfulness. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that clinicians need to help adolescent girls manage STD acquisition from the perspective of problem solving rather than self-blame.