Parenting a Second Time Around: An Ethnography of African American Grandmothers Parenting Grandchildren Due to Parental Cocaine Abuse

This study describes a group of six African American grandmothers parenting their grandchildren secondary to cocaine abuse on the part of the parents. It explores the manner in which such parenting affected the grandmothers’ health. Data for this ethnography design were collected through participant observation, field notes, taped interviews, and supplementary data sources. The identification of cultural themes evolved from domain and taxonomic analyses. The themes—parenting a second time around, sacrifice, and God’s presence in daily life—expressed aspects of the grandmothers’ culture. The effects on health varied from none to exacerbation of chronic illnesses. The study results, and its picture of life from the grandmothers’ perspectives, suggest areas of nursing assessment and intervention that otherwise might be left unexplored

Reducing Sexual Risk with Practice of Periodic Secondary Abstinence

Objective: Test a novel intervention to help sexually experienced girls increase abstinence behaviors and attitudes. Design: A quasi-experimental repeated measures design using qualitative and quantitative data. Setting: Two alternative public schools. Participants: Thirty-three females whose mean age was 16 and who were 79% African American participated. Most (79%) had experienced a pregnancy. Intervention: A 6 session, weekly, interactive intervention was delivered. Data were collected at baseline, last session, and at 5 and 7 month follow-ups. Main Outcome Measures: Measured outcomes related to abstinence included participants’ reasons, behaviors, stages of change, and attitudes. Results: The most common reason for abstinence was not wanting to have sex. At each postintervention data collection point, most participants (greater than or equal to 74%) reported that they had purposefully avoided sex. Duration of consecutive days of abstinence increased although only significantly at 5 month follow-up. Abstinence behaviors increased with the largest change from first to last session. Stage of change advanced from preparation to action by 7 month follow-up. Attitudes toward abstinence became more favorable. Conclusion: Effective sexual risk reduction interventions are critically needed to promote safety. Nurses may assist young women to decrease their sexual risks by teaching them to practice periodic abstinence

Recommendations for Sexuality Education for Early Adolescents

Objective: To determine community support and identify appropriate learning methodologies, parameters of delivery, and intervention content. Design: Qualitative descriptive study in which participants were interviewed in a semistructured format. Data were analyzed thematically. Setting: An urban pediatric primary care clinic from which youths and parents were recruited. Participants: Ten youths, 10 parents, and 10 community members. Community members included professional and laypersons who had experience in working with early adolescents or in working with children of any age on sexuality issues. Overall, most participants were female (67%) and African American (67%). Results: Descriptions of early adolescents ’ knowledge of sexuality, participants ’ support for sexuality education for early adolescents, recommendations for education content, and preferred methods for education delivery. Conclusion: The participants supported comprehensive sexuality education for early adolescents. They believed that it would help youths to be abstinent, would provide some protection from sexual abuse, and would prepare them to practice safer sex in the future

Conducting Life History Research With Adolescents

This article is a commentary on the life history approach, which specifically described aspects of and offered suggestions for conducting life history research with adolescents. The life history approach is well suited to a wide variety of types of health-related inquiry. In this article, the author used an exemplar study to show how well the life history approach was suited for questions regarding adolescent issues. This approach was also a good match for the developmental skills and needs of adolescents. The author uses the strengths and weaknesses of the approach and a detailed example of how she used the life history data to identify themes drawn from the exemplar study. She makes specific suggestions, including the development and implementation of an interview guide, planning and scheduling interviews, and the use of a life history grid. She includes examples of each suggestion and a sample life history grid

qq-Rook polynomials and matrices over finite fields

Connections between $q$-rook polynomials and matrices over finite fields are exploited to derive a new statistic for Garsia and Remmel's $q$-hit polynomial. Both this new statistic $mat$ and another statistic for the $q$-hit polynomial $\xi$ recently introduced by Dworkin are shown to induce different multiset Mahonian permutation statistics for any Ferrers board. In addition, for the triangular boards they are shown to generate different families of Euler-Mahonian statistics. For these boards the $\xi$ family includes Denert's statistic $den$, and gives a new proof of Foata and Zeilberger's Theorem that $(exc,den)$ is jointly distributed with $(des,maj)$. The $mat$ family appears to be new. A proof is also given that the $q$-hit polynomials are symmetric and unimodal

Understanding Sexual Abstinence in African American Teens

Purpose: To explore the perspectives of teenage girls on how life contexts influenced sexuality and sexual abstinence. Study Design and Methods: A qualitative descriptive study with a convenience sample of 14 sexually abstinent African American adolescent females who were interviewed to obtain their life histories. Narrative analysis was used to identify unique and common experiences and to develop themes. Results: For these participants, being abstinent was a way to demonstrate their emerging identities as adult women. They described themselves as faithful, unique persons who defied negative stereotypes, avoided risky situations, wanted to be strong women like their mothers and grandmothers, and were selective about their friends. The primary challenge to abstinence was their degree of vulnerability to sexual harassment, romantic partner pressure, and female peer pressure. Clinical Implications: Abstinence is a complex state of being that is influenced by a variety of contexts, develops over time, and is consciously chosen. Maintaining abstinence requires effort and a variety of skills. While these young women were cognitively familiar with reasons why they should refrain from sex, nurses may still assist youth with being abstinent by providing ongoing teaching and specific dialogue on how to refrain from sex

The Association of Religiosity, Sexual Education, and Parental Factors with Risky Sexual Behaviors Among Adolescents and Young Adults

This study examined the association of religiosity, sexual education and family structure with risky sexual behaviors among adolescents and young adults. The nationally representative sample, from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth, included 3,168 women and men ages 15–21 years. Those who viewed religion as very important, had frequent church attendance, and held religious sexual attitudes were 27–54% less likely to have had sex and had significantly fewer sex partners than peers. Participants whose formal and parental sexual education included abstinence and those from two-parent families were 15% less likely to have had sex and had fewer partners