PARTNRS reached an important milestone on Tuesday, by interviewing the VERY FIRST couple for our study. After months of preperation, programming, and perseverence we officially have study participants. The first couple was recruited from St. Raphaels and were very sweet and understanding (especially since we are still working out some of the kinks of our survey). The survey is still a tad on the long side and we are working to trim it a bit to minimize burden while maximizing the amount of important information that we gain. I would like to thank all of the staff from our four participating clinics for all of their help and support.

I recently came across an abstract from the Western Journal of Nursing Research titled “Father and Adolescent Son Variables Related to Son’s HIV Prevention.“ While the full article is not available online to us yet, it was interesting to see another group looking at the role familial relationships play in the prevention of STDs and HIV.   Notably, all fathers were recruited from churches…it would be interesting to compare results from father-son pairs that did not attend church.  The study found that ”greater son’s perception of the communication of sexual standards and greater father’s perception of his son’s self-efficacy were significantly related to greater son’s self-efficacy for abstinence,” but not significantly related to the son’s self-efficacy for safer sex.  Glenn BL, Demi A, Kimble LP. “Father and Adolescent Son Variables Related to Son’s HIV Prevention” West J Nurs Res. 2007 Jul 18. 

Additionally, we welcomed Andrea to our team for the summer, a student at Loyola University in Chicago. We are pleased to have her join us!