Parent-Related Barriers and Facilitators to HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) for Adolescent Sexual Minority and Gender Diverse Assigned Males: Parent and Adolescent Perspectives.

Authors

Jack C Rusley, Erza Gashi, Philip A Chan, Renata Arrington-Sanders, Larry Brown, Anashua Rani Elwy, Emily Toma, Maayan Leroy-Melamed, Corbin Gearhart, Yeju Srivastava, Kate M Guthrie

Published in

AIDS patient care and STDs. Pages 10872914261493757. Sep 28, 2026. Epub Sep 28, 2026.

Abstract

Little is known about the willingness of parents to support adolescent HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) decision-making and use, and even less is known about the context of sexual health communication (SHC) between adolescents and parents related to PrEP. This study aimed to explore this context and identify parent-related barriers and facilitators to HIV prevention for adolescents at risk for HIV, with a particular focus on PrEP. We conducted individual, in-depth interviews with 14 adolescent sexual minority and gender diverse assigned males and 14 parents of adolescents (n = 6 of whom were dyad pairs) recruited from social media and an adolescent medicine clinic in the Northeastern US. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed, and transcripts were coded and analyzed using applied thematic analysis to identify themes related to parent-level barriers and facilitators. We identified four main themes: (1) parents' sex-negative or sex-positive approaches to SHC contributed to specific barriers and facilitators to PrEP; (2) some parents with low willingness to consider PrEP held misconceptions about HIV transmission and PrEP safety; (3) many parents with limited PrEP knowledge were willing to consider PrEP after receiving brief education; and (4) some adolescents would involve their parents in PrEP use to facilitate access. These findings suggest that parental approaches to SHC and PrEP awareness are promising targets for interventions aiming to increase adolescent PrEP uptake. Future studies should explore adolescent-, provider-, and system-level barriers and facilitators to adolescent PrEP uptake, as well as population-level surveys of PrEP willingness in nationally representative samples.

PMID:
42806716
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 29 Sep 2026.

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