Effects Of Family Structure On High-Risk Experiences In Adolescence Of Homeless Women 

Discussion: The presented results provide a broad picture of the effect of family risk and protective factors on high-risk experiences during adolescence of homeless women. We found that family characteristics e. g. populous family, living with a single parent, living without parents, parental violence, lack of family support (financial and emotional), parental substance use, parental death, parental illiteracy were risk factors and living with both parents was a protective factor for high-risk experiences during adolescence of homeless women. In this study sexual abuse, prison and criminal records, and immigration to Tehran during childhood and adolescence of homeless women has been predicted by populous family. In line with this study, the result of studies showed that violent and delinquent, high-risk sexual behaviors in adolescents with more than 4 siblings have been reported as 10 times higher than that in other adolescents due to the lack of adequate time for control and parental supervision.

Living without parents (living with relatives, friends, and hostels affiliated to welfare organization or NGOs) predicted school drop-out, prison and criminal records, engaging in Sigheh, and having multiple sex partners during adolescence of homeless women. The results showed that living with single parent can predict, engaging in Sigheh and having multiple sex partners. Consistent with this study, studies suggest that no-parent adolescents are more likely than a single-parent adolescents and a single-parent adolescents are more likely than two-parent adolescents to be exposed to risky behaviors such as school dropout delinquency, violence, antisocial risky sexual behaviors during childhood and adolescence. In this regard, Wamoyi claims children from single parent families received less control compared to both parent familien.

In this study rates of family physical, sexual abuse during adolescences among homeless were high. Quality of family relationships was an important factor that affects on high-risk experiences during adolescences of homeless women and parental violence predicted physical, psychological abuse, running away from home and drug use of homeless women during adolescence. Consistent with our study results of studies show childhood sexual and psychological abuse, running away from home, and drug use often occurs alongside other forms of abuse or neglect, and in family environments in which there may be domestic violence. Safyer found that 41% of the adolescents attributed their runaway behavior to a poor relationship dynamic with their parents. Although studies typically ask runaways to retrospectively recall the reasons why they left home, prospective studies indicate that poor parenting practices and physical abuse increase the likelihood that a child will run away. In this study running away and marriage under 18 years have been predicted by lack of support family (financial and emotional). Homeless women declared that they were obligated to run away from home or early and forced marriage due to lack of family support.

In Tucker’s study running away from home was predicted by lack of parental support. According to the results of this study, most participants (55. 6%) had addicted parents. Homeless women with addicted parents are more likely to engage in substance use and other abnormal behaviors like as school dropout, sexual, physical abuse, childhood labour, premarital sexual activity, alcohol use, prison history and criminal record, engaging in sigheh (temporary marriage), having multiple sex partners during adolescences. Homeless women with addicted parents engaged in sexual activity and drug use earlier. Consistent with these result studies show that addicted parents cause children to perform similar to them as unhealthy patterns; also, children and adolescents with addicted parents are more likely to engage in high risk behaviors like as delinquency, and drug use.

What is interesting is that children with a family history of drug abuse also may have increased genetic risk for substance use, often manifested in combination with family or other environmental risk factors. Children can learn about substance use from a very young age, especially if exposed to parental substance use. Substance use can intensify problems and become an impediment to a stepfamily’s integration and stability. When substance abuse is part of the family, unique issues can arise. Such issues might include sexual, physical abuse and neglect premarital sexual practice, and parental authority disputes. Parental substance use can also impact the family environment by giving rise to family conflict and poor parenting, which could increase risk for child abuse and neglect and involvement with the child welfare system[63]. Poor family functioning can increase the risk of multiple problem behaviors during children and adolescents, e. g. risk for substance abuse. Regarding easy access and its role in addiction free availability of drugs and weak laws in certain families results in overflow of drugs.

The death of a parent constitutes a potentially traumatic life event that may affect the life course of a child in many different ways. Homeless women stated that because of parental loss during childhood and adolescences they were forced to run away from home, childhood labour and marriage under 18 years of age in homeless women. These behaviors exposed the homeless women to other high-risk behaviors. In Agbo’s study children who are orphans may be forced by poverty and lack of care to become the breadwinners of the family due to parental absence by death. In families like these, children with little or no income from their parents and relations engage in all sorts of child labour to sustain themselves in areas such as feeding and daily needs, and to also to find succor and reduce frustrations and abandonment. Studies showed that youth who lost a parent were vulnerable high-risk behaviors during the years after the loss. While youth in developed countries usually become street-involved due to familial conflict and child abuse, children in resource-constrained settings (RCS) succumb to street life due to abject poverty, child abuse, neglect, familial dysfunction, death of one or both parents, war and socio-cultural and religious beliefs. In our study homeless women with low parental literacy were more likely to engage in substance abuse and marriage under 18 years of age. One study in Iran showed that the prevalence of high-risk behaviors among street children in southeast Iran was almost high and children who their parents are illiterate are more at risk.

According to our results, living with both parents was a protective factor for high- risk experiences such as dropout school, sexual abuse, and premarital sexual activity of homeless women. Consistent with our results, some studies showed that the rates of many risk behaviors, e. g. involvement in forced sexual experience, crime and violence, drug and alcohol use, and sexual risk, were lowest among those living with both parents, higher among those living with one parent, and highest among those living with neither parent.

In summary, our study found that most participants had very vulnerable family histories and this situation provided a fertile ground for risk behaviors among homeless women. Therefore, reform and empowerment of family-based prevention strategies should be included in comprehensive prevention programs. The combination of community prevention approaches and family empowerment initiatives could increase the preventive effect of interventions. We suggest the need for future studies focused on the development and evaluation of a comprehensive educational model with an emphasis on the role of family to prevent high-risk behaviors in Iranian homeless women. The present study had some limitations. Homeless women are highly stigmatized in the Iranian culture and are a hard-to-reach population for research purposes. Most of these women did not initially cooperate with the research team because of sensitivity of the subject. To address these challenges, researchers attended the centers regularly, held several training workshops with staff and clients and consulted them for a month before data collection. The cross-sectional nature of this study means that the associations shown do not necessarily indicate causality. The most important limitation in this study recall and self-reporting in case of information. According to the time taken from the occurrence of high-risk experiences during adolescence, the information may be distant from existing facts. This is true of all cross-sectional studies. Lastly, probably because of the stigma of high-risk experiences, its frequency has been underestimated.