Mothers of adolescent girls: comparing HIV positive and HIV negative women.

Background: HIV+ mothers of adolescent girls can serve as agents of change, particularly when it comes to preventing patterns of behaviors that are inherently dangerous. In order to do so these women need to be able to communicate with their daughters and educate them about risk behaviors, especially those associated with HIV acquisition. The objective is to describe the sociodemographic and risk profile in a sample of mothers of adolescent girls who are HIV+ or HIV negative and analyze differences between them.

Methods: A convenience sample was recruited from three sites, the Universidad Central del Caribe School of Medicine, the UPR School of Medicine, and the Ponce School of Medicine. Six focus groups, two in each institution, were conducted following Krueger's methodology with the objective of developing an educational intervention for mothers of adolescent girls. All participants completed two self-administered questionnaires prior to the focus group. A data analysis was performed--descriptive statistics for the sociodemographic measures included frequencies, percents, mean and SD. We used t test and the Fisher's exact test to analyze differences between groups.

Results: A total of 44 participants were enrolled, with 50% being HIV positive mothers and 50% being HIV negative mothers. The mean age for both groups was similar (41 years). Statistically significant differences (P < .05) were observed among HIV diagnosis and for the following variables: education, working status, income, marital status, age at first intercourse, and illicit drug use.

Conclusions: It is possible that the sociodemographic characteristics of HIV+ women affect their parenting and communication skills. The same factors that may have led to these women being infected by HIV in the first place might in addition be compromising their roles as effective parents.