| In the United States, grandparents often assume primary caregiving responsibilities for their grandchildren, many of whom are afflicted with mental illnesses. A growing body of research indicates that these adolescents with mental illnesses are at a greater risk of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection than their peers because of their tendency to engage in more sexual and drug-related risk behaviors. Parental monitoring and parent-child sexual communication are important variables in decreasing sexual risk-taking among adolescents in general, as well as among adolescents with mental illness. While there is a great deal of research surrounding grandparent caregivers' contextual risk factors, specific parenting variables have not been widely investigated among this population. In the present study, the author investigated parental monitoring, communication, HIV knowledge and adolescent risk behavior among a sample of 49 grandmother caregivers of adolescents with mental illness. The author compared these grandmother caregivers with a group of 49 mother caregivers matched on ethnicity and gender of the adolescent. While there were no significant differences between the two groups in parental monitoring and adolescent risk, grandmothers demonstrated less accurate HIV knowledge. Less accurate HIV knowledge tended to be associated with less open sexual communication, but not to a statistically significant degree. These findings have important implications for family-based HIV prevention interventions. |
