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Archived Comments for: Evaluation of Sexual Communication Message Strategies

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  1. Evaluation of Sexual Communication Message Strategies

    Bulelwa Frieda Mayeye, University

    4 January 2012

    Dear Editor,
    I would like to commend Evans, Davis, Umanzor and Khan on the article ¿Evaluation of Sexual Communication Message Strategies¿ published in the Reproductive Health Journal, 2011 at http/www.reproductive ¿ health ¿ journal.com/content/8/1/15. This article is about parent-child communication regarding sex as an important proximal reproductive health outcome. Lack of communication between parents and children on aspects of sexuality is a problematic issue bothering public health practitioners around the world including South Africa. This article is relevant to the needs and challenges that are confronting our youth as they become victims of abuse, human trafficking, sexually transmitted infections drugs and alcohol abuse. Parents need to be empowered to communicate effectively with their children using evidence based communication strategies. Information received from parents is always more reliable than messages from peers.
    According to the authors, the ¿Parents Speak Up National Campaign¿ (PSUNC) is an evidence-based social marketing campaign that has been shown to be efficacious in increasing parent-child communication and behavioral determinants such as beliefs and intentions to communicate. Similarly, I believe ¿Activation of Model of Information Exposure¿ used in this project would be very useful within our communities with similar issues. However, I would like to encourage the authors to indicate where and when this model was tested and its effectiveness in building skills for effective communication.
    It would also be very useful if this study could be replicated and tested in a setting such as South Africa where single parents, poor families and participants from different ethnic groups could be recruited as participants. I also support the use of secondary data since issues of sexuality and reproductive health in settings like ours are not culturally discussed between parents and children.

    Sincerely,
    Bulelwa Frieda Mayeye
    University of Fort Hare
    East London Campus, South Africa, e-mail: frieda.mayeye@gmail.com

    Competing interests

    None declared

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