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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

lawrence Severy, PhD and Betsy Tolley, PhD. Behavioral and Social Sciences, Family Health International, po box 13950, research triangle park, NC 27709, 919-544-7040, lsevery@fhi.org

Overview: Concern and attention to the impact that methods might have on sexual pleasure is playing a role of increasing importance in clinical trials related to both prevention of unwanted pregnancy and/or HIV/AIDS. The goal of this talk is to: review the most interesting meta-analyses supporting the above premise, identify cultural perspectives relevant to the issue, and briefly present three different data sets to demonstrating various ways in which the nature of the sexual relationship identifies differing clinical trial success.

Methods: The three different data sets include: 1) a questionnaire study attached to a clinical trial of a new method of contraception - approximately 400 US couples were studied over the course of a year; 2) a questionnaire study of over 1500 US women participating in a clinical trial of advance provision of a prevention method; 3) a questionnaire study of 300 Indian women (and their partners) recruited from the same populations to be involved in a clinical trial of microbicides.

Results and discussion: Following a presentation detailing the impact of pleasure on method use, and a consideration of cultural variation, findings related to the three data sets will be highlighted. Perhaps the highest level of abstraction to be drawn from these studies is that success in using these methods is not universal, that scientists and policy makers need to attend to various market segments within any population, and that one of the critical parameters of such segmentation is the nature of the sexual relationship being experienced by those involved.

Learning Objectives:

• identify the way that sexual pleasure impacts prevention behaviors, theoretically and empirically

Keywords: HIV/AIDS, Reproductive Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No