Abstract
An archival data set obtained from a community HIV/AIDS Prevention Project in Southern California known as Hablando Claro was used to explore the relationship between Latina adolescents' acculturation level and sense of familismo with their HIV comfort, sexual communication comfort, safe-sex efficacy beliefs, and safe-sex intentions. The responses from 169 Latina adolescents who participated were used. These participants ranged in age from 12 to 17 with a mean age of 14.32 years (SD = 1.77). Acculturation level was not found to be related to Latina adolescents HIV comfort levels, comfort communicating sexual issues with their mothers, comfort communicating sexual issues with partners, healthy sexual intentions or to safe-sex efficacy beliefs. Similarly, Familismo level was not found to be related to Latina adolescents' HIV comfort levels, comfort communicating sexual issues with their partner, or to safe-sex efficacy beliefs. Familsmo was found to be related to Latina adolescents' comfort communicating with their mothers about sexuality issues and with level of healthy sexual intensions. Future research examining the role of Familismo on sexual communication comfort among Latina adolescents, particularly with their mothers, is an important factor to consider for the development of HIV prevention strategies.