Barriers to sexual health communication between parents and teenagers: Perspectives of parents in a rural community in Mpumalanga province, South Africa

Teenagers are affected by negative sexual and reproductive health outcomes because of the lack of knowledge and risky decision-making. This may be worsened by teenagers seeking information from questionable sources such as the internet, and social media. This highlights the need for parent-teen communication on sexual health practices. The study aimed to explore the perspectives of parents regarding the barriers to sexual health communication with their teenagers in the Masoyi rural community, Mpumalanga province, South Africa. This exploratory, descriptive, qualitative study was conducted using in-depth interviews and analyzed using content analysis. Purposive sampling was used to select 14 parents who had teenagers aged 12 to 19 years. Parents revealed that the barriers that hindered parent-teen communication include cultural influences, unavailability of parents and conflicting messages from parents and media, age difference and media (television). Parents need to be confident or comfortable in engaging with their teenagers about sexual health content.