Page 104 - IJPS-10-1

International Journal of

Population Studies

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Parent-adolescent communication about

COVID-19 safety precautions in Nigeria: A
qualitative research

Aloysius Odii*

Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria
(This article belongs to Special Issue: Population and Reproductive Health Dynamics under
Covid-19 in Sub-Saharan Africa)

Abstract

Parents remain the primary source of health information for adolescents but their
discussions regarding coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) safety precautions have
not been systematically explored. This study aimed to qualitatively explore the
communication between parents and children regarding COVID-19 safety measures.
In-depth interviews with 25 parents from different communities in Enugu State,
Nigeria, were conducted. The study revealed that parents obtained information
about the severity of the virus and the preventive measures from the media. Then,
they persuaded their children, sometimes through threat or force and religious
allegories, to comply with the preventive measures. The discussions about safety
measures between parents and their children proved to be effective since the parents
*Corresponding author: reported that their children obeyed the rules following their communications.
Aloysius Odii Parent-adolescent communication about COVID-19 also instilled the concept of
(aloysius.odii@unn.edu.ng) practicing basic hygiene routines into the adolescents. The implications of the
Citation: Odii, A. (2024). parent-adolescent communication for policy and research are discussed.
Parent-adolescent communication
about COVID-19 safety precautions
in Nigeria: A qualitative research. Keywords: Parents; Adolescents; Risk communication; COVID-19
International Journal of Population
Studies, 10(1):98-107.
https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.363
Received: September 19, 2022 1. Introduction
Accepted: December 1, 2023
Upon the declaration of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, global
Published Online: December 19, response and risk communication have been centered around safety precautions to reduce
2023
the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) – the
Copyright: © 2023 Author(s). virus responsible for COVID-19 (Olarewaju, 2020; Odii et al., 2020a; Nigerian Centre
This is an Open-Access article for Disease Control [NCDC], 2020; Otuonye et al., 2021). Some of the most notable
distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution precautions preached to the public include regular hand washing, physical distancing
License, permitting distribution, of at least one meter, avoiding crowds, face mask wearing, and hygiene maintenance
and reproduction in any medium, (World Health Organisation [WHO], 2022).
provided the original work is
properly cited. Although older people are at higher risk of contracting and dying from the virus,
Publisher’s Note: AccScience young people are in no way invincible to it (United Nations [UN], 2020). Among the
Publishing remains neutral with 4.4 million COVID-19 deaths reported in the MPIDR Coverage database, 17,200
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional occurred among children and adolescents under 20 years of age, and out of this, 53%
affiliations. occurred among adolescents ages 10 – 19 (UNICEF, 2022). The high COVID-19-related

Volume 10 Issue 1 (2024) 98 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.363