What influences university students to seek sexually transmitted infection testing?: A qualitative study in New Zealand
What influences university students to seek sexually transmitted infection testing?: A qualitative study in New Zealand
Objective: Untreated sexually transmitted infections (STIs) can lead to serious health complications, increase susceptibility to contracting further STIs including human immunodefiniceny virus (HIV), and can be transmitted to others. The early diagnosis and treatment of STIs is therefore central to comprehensive STI management and prevention, but this relies on those at risk of STIs presenting for testing. In order to understand STI testing behaviours in view of their improvement, this study aimed to elucidate why people seek STI testing.
Methods: Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with 24 university students who had recently had an STI test. Resulting data were analysed employing a qualitative thematic analysis method to produce a final set of themes.
Results: Five drivers for STI testing were identified from the data: crisis, partners, clinicians, routines, and previous knowledge. The final driver, previous knowledge, intersected with the previous four, particularly in relation to routines. Many participants acknowledged that the more they knew about STIs the more likely they were to undertake routine tests. However, at the same time, many participants felt they did not have a good knowledge base and that their school-based sex education had been lacking.
Conclusion: This study highlights important drivers for STI testing, which may aid the design of public health campaigns. It also underlines that school-based education could provide stronger foundations with regards to STIs and their prevention.
Healthcare-seeking behaviour, Qualitative, Sexually transmitted infection, Testing behaviour, Young people
56-60
Denison, Hayley J.
ef999cd1-4d3b-4e91-a301-0c2d4e5ba64d
Bromhead, Collette
f72a8ee3-2d85-4308-a689-1bca8e5b5ed8
Grainger, Rebecca
16826e50-56c6-4544-92d6-0fe47e878095
Dennison, Elaine M.
ee647287-edb4-4392-8361-e59fd505b1d1
Jutel, Annemarie
f35a01d6-b4a8-4cbd-9ea1-fb8f9131af31
1 June 2018
Denison, Hayley J.
ef999cd1-4d3b-4e91-a301-0c2d4e5ba64d
Bromhead, Collette
f72a8ee3-2d85-4308-a689-1bca8e5b5ed8
Grainger, Rebecca
16826e50-56c6-4544-92d6-0fe47e878095
Dennison, Elaine M.
ee647287-edb4-4392-8361-e59fd505b1d1
Jutel, Annemarie
f35a01d6-b4a8-4cbd-9ea1-fb8f9131af31
Denison, Hayley J., Bromhead, Collette, Grainger, Rebecca, Dennison, Elaine M. and Jutel, Annemarie
(2018)
What influences university students to seek sexually transmitted infection testing?: A qualitative study in New Zealand.
Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare, 16, .
(doi:10.1016/j.srhc.2018.01.004).
Abstract
Objective: Untreated sexually transmitted infections (STIs) can lead to serious health complications, increase susceptibility to contracting further STIs including human immunodefiniceny virus (HIV), and can be transmitted to others. The early diagnosis and treatment of STIs is therefore central to comprehensive STI management and prevention, but this relies on those at risk of STIs presenting for testing. In order to understand STI testing behaviours in view of their improvement, this study aimed to elucidate why people seek STI testing.
Methods: Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with 24 university students who had recently had an STI test. Resulting data were analysed employing a qualitative thematic analysis method to produce a final set of themes.
Results: Five drivers for STI testing were identified from the data: crisis, partners, clinicians, routines, and previous knowledge. The final driver, previous knowledge, intersected with the previous four, particularly in relation to routines. Many participants acknowledged that the more they knew about STIs the more likely they were to undertake routine tests. However, at the same time, many participants felt they did not have a good knowledge base and that their school-based sex education had been lacking.
Conclusion: This study highlights important drivers for STI testing, which may aid the design of public health campaigns. It also underlines that school-based education could provide stronger foundations with regards to STIs and their prevention.
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Denison et al 2018_last accepted word doc
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More information
Accepted/In Press date: 26 January 2018
e-pub ahead of print date: 31 January 2018
Published date: 1 June 2018
Keywords:
Healthcare-seeking behaviour, Qualitative, Sexually transmitted infection, Testing behaviour, Young people
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 418893
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/418893
ISSN: 1877-5756
PURE UUID: 9ef87a6e-cdb6-4075-8502-f7069c39bdaf
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Date deposited: 23 Mar 2018 17:31
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 05:16
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Contributors
Author:
Hayley J. Denison
Author:
Collette Bromhead
Author:
Rebecca Grainger
Author:
Annemarie Jutel
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