The Sexual Awareness for Everyone (SAFE) program was not geared toward teens, but the intervention reduced sexual risk and recurrent gonorrhea and chlamydia infection in a study of Mexican- and African-American girls ages 14-18. The program also reduced re-infection and risk among women age 19 and older.
SAFE emphasizes prevention strategies such as periodic abstinence, mutual monogamy, and correct, consistent use of condoms. In addition, it covers the importance of taking the full course of STD treatment, avoiding sex during treatment, not douching, and seeing a doctor when a woman suspects she is infected. The intervention uses small-group meetings, role-playing, interactive video, handouts, and group discussions.
During the study's first 12 months, the cumulative re-infection rate of teen SAFE participants was about 24 percent compared with 40 percent for teens given 15 minutes of individual STD risk reduction counseling. The cumulative re-infection rate among women age 19 and older was 12 percent, compared with 18 percent among the control group.
Cumulatively, teens had a higher re-infection rate of 33.1 percent than the adult rate of 14.4 percent, "because the behavior that was most highly and consistently associated with recurrent infection in teens, unprotected sex with untreated partners, was not sufficiently modified by the SAFE intervention," wrote Dr. Andrea Ries Thurman of the University of Texas Health Sciences Center-San Antonio and colleagues.
"Although not specifically designed for teens, the SAFE intervention worked very well in this high-risk population," said Ries. The team concluded that STD prevention interventions for teens should "emphasize skills to help teens ensure their partners are treated or to otherwise refuse intercourse."
The full report, "Preventing Recurrent Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Minority Adolescents," was published in Obstetrics & Gynecology (2008;111:1417-1425).
06/02/08
UNITED STATES: Program Decreases Recurrent STDs in Teens
Source: Reuters; Courtesy of the CDC National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention