Research team looking for young volunteers for sexual health survey

A research team at Coventry University is looking for teenage volunteers to take part in a survey which will give sexual health care professionals a clearer understanding of how young people view and use contraception.

The SASH team (Studies in Adolescent and Sexual Health) have developed an on-line game called VoID (Volitional Intervention Development) which aims to bridge the gap between teenagers’ accessing contraception and actually using that contraception properly.

Young people may often hold quite strong intentions to use a chosen contraceptive method, but fail to consistently translate that intention into action.

By getting young people to take part in the survey, the data collected (which is confidential) will be used to tailor future sexual health education advice and workshops specifically for young people.

Dr. Katherine Brown who is leading the project said:

“The VoID programme will provide us with vital research data surrounding condom and contraceptive use and as we are gathering the information using an interactive computer-based programme, we hope it will engage the young people to take an active part in it.

“Once we have collected the information and evaluated it we should get a clearer understanding of the sexual activity of young people and why they do or do not use their chosen method of contraception.”

The SASH team would like to acknowledge Prof. Charles Abraham from the Psychology Department at the University of Sussex for his contribution to the development of the original prototype of this intervention and the team at Spook CGI and KAJ ISIS Ltd for their technical and design expertise in devising the software.

The study is running in sexual health drop-in services in North Warwickshire. Anyone interested in taking part in the research should visit the SASH website at http://www.healthinterventions.co.uk/

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For further information contact Puja Joshi, Research Assistant, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences on +44 (0)24 7688 7175.