Sexual Communication between Adolescent Partners: A Scoping Review and Directions for Future Research.

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  • Additional Information
    • Source:
      Publisher: Routledge Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 0062647 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1559-8519 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 00224499 NLM ISO Abbreviation: J Sex Res Subsets: MEDLINE
    • Publication Information:
      Publication: Philadelphia : Routledge
      Original Publication: New York, Society for the Scientific Study of Sex.
    • Subject Terms:
      Sexual Behavior*/psychology ; Sexually Transmitted Diseases*; Adolescent ; Communication ; Condoms ; Humans ; Reproducibility of Results ; Sexual Partners/psychology
    • Abstract:
      Sexual communication between adolescent partners is an important component of sexual health and wellbeing. Over 40 years of research on adolescent sexual communication has yielded rich information, yet there remain gaps in our understanding of the communication process. The purpose of this scoping review was to synthesize the body of research on adolescent sexual communication to identify how communication has been conceptualized, how researchers have measured communication, and what theoretical frameworks have been applied across the literature. We identified 198 assessments of sexual communication across 119 quantitative studies. This work included 127,489 adolescents ( M age  = 15.97) from 15 countries (81.5% U.S.-based). Most studies relied on self-reports (93.4%) and surveyed only one member of a couple (97.5%). The definition of sexual communication was highly varied across the literature: in half of assessments (52.0%) sexual communication was operationalized as a behavior-the verbal or nonverbal exchange of messages about sex-whereas the remaining half of assessments captured social-cognitive aspects of communication (e.g., communication self-efficacy, fear/anxiety). There was also a tendency for investigators to create their own idiosyncratic instruments: half of studies (48.9%) used instruments created by the research team with limited or no discussion of reliability/validity. Regarding the topic of communication, a third of assessments (33.8%) focused exclusively on condom communication and another quarter (24.0%) focused on other safer-sex issues (e.g., STDs, abstinence). Notably absent were studies focused on communication surrounding consent or sexual pleasure. Also absent was a guiding conceptual model or theory that could unify this body of work. Overall, results highlight gaps and inconsistencies in how partner sexual communication has been conceptualized, measured, and theorized about in previous work. We provide several recommendations for future theory-building efforts as well as rigorous, multimethod empirical investigations of adolescent sexual communication that would further our understanding of this important aspect of adolescent sexual wellbeing.
    • Publication Date:
      Date Created: 20220802 Date Completed: 20220923 Latest Revision: 20221222
    • Publication Date:
      20221222
    • Accession Number:
      10.1080/00224499.2022.2099787
    • Accession Number:
      35917190