Parental Monitoring and Its Associations With Adolescent Sexual Risk Behavior: A Meta-analysis.

Pediatrics. 2015 Dec;136(6):e1587-99. doi: 10.1542/peds.2015-0305.

Dittus PJ, Michael SL, Becasen JS, Gloppen KM, McCarthy K, Guilamo-Ramos V.

CONTEXT: Increasingly, health care providers are using approaches targetingparents in an effort to improve adolescent sexual and reproductive health.Research is needed to elucidate areas in which providers can target adolescentsand parents effectively. Parental monitoring offers one such opportunity, givenconsistent protective associations with adolescent sexual risk behavior. However,less is known about which components of monitoring are most effective and mostsuitable for provider-initiated family-based interventions.
OBJECTIVE: We performed a meta-analysis to assess the magnitude of associationbetween parental monitoring and adolescent sexual intercourse, condom use, andcontraceptive use.
DATA SOURCES: We conducted searches of Medline, the Cumulative Index to Nursingand Allied Health Literature, PsycInfo, Cochrane, the Education ResourcesInformation Center, Social Services Abstracts, Sociological Abstracts, Proquest, and Google Scholar.
STUDY SELECTION: We selected studies published from 1984 to 2014 that werewritten in English, included adolescents, and examined relationships betweenparental monitoring and sexual behavior.

DATA EXTRACTION: We extracted effect size data to calculate pooled odds ratios(ORs) by using a mixed-effects model.

RESULTS: Higher overall monitoring (pooled OR, 0.74; 95% confidence interval[CI], 0.69-0.80), monitoring knowledge (pooled OR, 0.81; 95% CI, 0.73-0.90), and rule enforcement (pooled OR, 0.67; 95% CI, 0.59-0.75) were associated withdelayed sexual intercourse. Higher overall monitoring (pooled OR, 1.12; 95% CI,1.01-1.24) and monitoring knowledge (pooled OR, 1.14; 95% CI, 1.01-1.31) wereassociated with greater condom use. Finally, higher overall monitoring wasassociated with increased contraceptive use (pooled OR, 1.42; 95% CI, 1.09-1.86),as was monitoring knowledge (pooled OR, 2.27; 95% CI, 1.42-3.63).

LIMITATIONS: Effect sizes were not uniform across studies, and most studies were cross-sectional.
CONCLUSIONS: Provider-initiated family-based interventions focused on parentalmonitoring represent a novel mechanism for enhancing adolescent sexual andreproductive health.