Mothers’ views about sexual health education for their adolescent daughters: a qualitative study

BACKGROUND Given that mothers play a role in the sexual education of their daughters, it is important to understand their views of sexual health and related programs. This study was aimed at exploring mothers' perspectives regarding sexual health education for their adolescent daughters in Mahshahr, Iran. METHODS In this qualitative study, in-depth interviews with ten key informants and five focus group discussions involving 28 mothers with daughters aged 12-18 were conducted. All the discussions were audio-recorded and later transcribed. The data were classified, after which the main themes and sub-themes were manually extracted and analyzed. RESULTS The five main themes determined were: the necessity of sexual health education for adolescent girls, the sources of information that mothers use, barriers to sexual health education, the need to empower mothers to provide sexual education to their daughters, and recommendations for developing special training programs for mothers. Most participants believed in limiting sexual health education for adolescent girls; nevertheless, they stated that trained mothers were best equipped to educate their daughters. The major barriers identified by the mothers were their own insufficient knowledge about sexual issues, embarrassment surrounding discussions of this issue with their daughters, fear of the arrogance and curiosity of girls, and a lack of skills for effective communication. CONCLUSION The results showed that empowering mothers to provide sexual health education is important. Tailored educational programs, based on mothers' views, should be developed and implemented.