Parent-adolescent communication on sexual reproductive health (SRH) is crucial in addressing adolescents’ needs and mitigating risks, such as early pregnancies. However, studies mapping this evidence within Indigenous Peoples in Latin American countries remain scarce. This scoping review examines the barriers and facilitators of parent-adolescent SRH communication among Indigenous Peoples in the Americas. This review follows the six-stage Arksey and O’Malley framework, the Joanna Briggs Institute Manual, and the PRISMA-ScR checklist. A keyword-based search across seven electronic databases was conducted for publications in Spanish and English from January 2000 to August 2024. Two reviewers screened and extracted data, using a Socio-Ecological Framework to synthesize the data and explore how individual, interpersonal, and community-level factors influence communication. Fifteen articles were included from an initial 1,087, with most studies conducted in Mexico, Guatemala, and Peru. Key barriers included parents’ limited education and knowledge due to their upbringings and low educational attainment, fear, shame, societal taboos, and stigma, especially around contraceptives and sexual activity. Traditional gender roles, changes in family structures, and intergenerational shifts compounded these barriers. Facilitators included leveraging parents’ experiences to strengthen emotional bonds and enhance communication. Other facilitators include same-sex conversations, particularly with mothers, and the evolving gender roles that empower female adolescents and women to access SRH information and services. This review highlights the SRH communication challenges Indigenous Peoples in the Americas face and identifies opportunities to improve these discussions. Future research should focus on underexplored content of conversations, underrepresented countries, and explore how economic, social, cultural, and policy factors influence parent-adolescent SRH communication.
Plain Language Summary Parent-Adolescent Communication on Sexual and Reproductive Health Indigenous adolescents in Latin America often face limited access to SRH information and services, which increases their risk of unintended pregnancies, early parenthood, violence, and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV/AIDS, unsafe abortion, and poor health outcomes for mothers and babies. Parents play an important role in communicating SRH information to their children, yet there is limited research on how Indigenous parents and adolescents communicate about these topics in the Americas. This review maps and reports the barriers and facilitators influencing parent-adolescent SRH communication among Indigenous communities in Latin American countries. The review follows established guidelines for scoping reviews and includes 15 studies selected from 1,087 articles. The findings reveal several communication barriers, such as parents’ limited education and knowledge about SRH topics, fear, shame, beliefs, social taboos, stigma, and changes in family composition. Facilitating factors include parents’ empirical knowledge and experiences, appropriate timing for discussions, the importance of coming-of-age rituals, same-sex conversation (e.g., fathers communicating to sons and mothers or motherly figures talking to daughters), and adolescent girls and women’s empowerment. The review also highlights a research gap, with most studies focused on Mexico, Guatemala, and Peru, while other countries with large Indigenous populations remain underrepresented. More research should focus on underexplored content of conversations, underrepresented countries and conduct systematic reviews or cross-country comparison studies to understand how economic, social, cultural, and policy contexts influence parent-adolescent SRH communication in the region.