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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Sohail Agha, PhD, Commercial Marketing Strategies, 1001 G Street, NW, Suite 400W, Washington, DC 20001-4545, 202-220-2150, sagha@cmsproject.com and Ronan Van Rossem, PhD, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 1, 3584 CS, Utrecht, Netherlands.
Background
To investigate whether improvements in self-efficacy, risk perception and normative beliefs regarding abstinence and condom use are sustained six months after the implementation of a 1 hour 45 minutes long peer education intervention aimed at improving the sexual health of adolescents in secondary schools.
Methods
The peer intervention was given in the first week of September 2000 in Lusaka, Zambia. A quasi-experimental, longitudinal panel design was used to evaluate its impact. Three schools were randomly assigned to the intervention condition and two to the control condition. Three rounds of data from male and female adolescents in grades 10 and 11 were collected at baseline in July 2000, at first follow-up in the second half of September 2000 and at second follow-up in early April 2001. A mixed-effects logistic regression growth curve analysis was used to calculate adjusted odds ratios to compare intervention and control groups on the outcome variables.
Results
Positive changes in attitudes and beliefs about abstinence were largely sustained until six months after the intervention. Several of the positive changes regarding attitudes and beliefs about condoms and HIV risk perception that were observed soon after the intervention could not be sustained over time.
Conclusions
Stronger and more regular efforts may be required to sustain positive changes in beliefs about condom use than about abstinence.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Adolescents, International, Sexual Risk Behavior
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I have a significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.
Relationship: I work for Population Services International (PSI) as their evaluation officer. The intervention that I have evaluated for this presentation was funded by PSI.