Influence of peer mentoring on African-American adolescents' sexual knowledge and behavior.

摘要

The Collaborative Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program (CAPPP) is a joint effort between the Sickle Cell Disease Association of the Piedmont (SCDA-P) in Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) of High Point in High Point, North Carolina. This study used data collected through the CAPPP to conduct a secondary analysis in order to determine whether its peer education approach had an influence on the sexual knowledge, attitudes (beliefs), and behaviors of African American adolescents in Guilford County, North Carolina. Results were based on pretest, posttest, and follow-up data obtained from instruments designed for the CAPPP project. Two groups were involved in this study, the peer educator group and the audience participant group.;There was an increase for both males and females in each group on the total knowledge scores, with females having the greater gain. Age was found to be an important factor, though not statistically significant.;Due to data recording errors and a small number of adolescents returning the questionnaires for posttest and follow-up periods, many of the analyses could not be computed for the peer educators. However, there were enough numbers to test whether there were differences in varying characteristics from those peer educators who completed the program compared to those who did not complete the program. The risk factors of previous sexual behavior, age, gender, and race were not found to be statistically significant in determining program retention.;Lastly, it was questioned whether the effect of teaching one's peers could explain the peer educators' change of sexual knowledge, attitude (beliefs), and behaviors versus the audience participants'. No statistically significant differences were found between the two groups.