Expectations and self-efficacy of African American parents who discuss sexuality with their adolescent sons: an intervention study.

OBJECTIVE: Despite research that suggests parental communication may help deter high-risk sexual behavior among adolescents, parents report a lack of confidence in their ability to answer sexually related questions. The purpose of this study was to test the effect of a multimedia intervention on outcome expectations and perceived self-efficacy for the sex educator role for parents of African American adolescent males. DESIGN AND SAMPLE: A pilot study using mixed methods was conducted. A nonprobability sample (N = 61) was obtained from a large urban community using a combination of convenience and snowball recruitment methods. MEASURES: Self-efficacy and outcome expectations were measured using self-reported questionnaires. INTERVENTION: A multimedia intervention for use at home and incorporating an audio CD and associated activities was implemented over a 3-week time period. RESULTS: Outcome expectations and self-efficacy both significantly improved after the intervention (p < .001). CONCLUSIONS: Findings indicate that using a multimedia approach may be effective in improving parents' outcome expectancy and self-efficacy for talking about sex with adolescent sons.

Perception of Obesity in African-American and Arab-American Minority Groups.

BACKGROUND: Effectiveness of health education programs and interventions, designed to improve obesity rates, may vary according to perceptions of health within cultural groups. METHOD: A qualitative approach was used. Two minority cultural groups (Arab-American and African-American) living in the same county were studied to compare perceptions of health, nutrition, and obesity and subsequent health behaviors. RESULTS: Control, expectations, bias, acceptance, and access were the five themes identified. Arab-Americans that had lower weights, lower prevalence of chronic diseases, expected healthy weights, reported age and gender bias related to being overweight were not as accepting of being overweight and did not report difficulties in accessing healthy food choices compared to their African-American counterparts. CONCLUSIONS: Health interventions aimed at reducing obesity rates and related chronic diseases should be culturally specific and aimed at changing expected and accepted cultural norms. Cultural group's void of certain disease states should be studied and used as models to ameliorate the problem in other cultures. Changing health behaviors within a certain cultural group may produce better outcomes when initiated from a member of that same group. The impact of economic and environmental factors on health behaviors must also be considered.