Project
Goals and Objectives
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Explore factors related
to female condom awareness, use, and adoption that
are similar to, or different from knowledge, use,
and adoption of vaginal microbicides for HIV/STI
and pregnancy prevention in high-risk women. |
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Explore factors
that enhance or impede the diffusion of innovative,
women-controlled HIV/STI prevention approaches (like
female condoms and microbicides) through networks
and communities of high-risk women. |
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Assess the
willingness of high-risk women and their male partners
to participate in and comply with protocols of a
short-term trial of female condoms in regular sexual
activity with primary, casual and paying partners. |
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Project
Details
The study uses a combination
of qualitative and quantitative methods. Staff will
recruit 30 women whom are familiar with the female
condom for in-depth interviewing on their perceptions
of and experiences with the female condom. These
interviews will document issues related to how personal
networks impact the dissemination of information
about and use of the female condom. The interviews
will also explore factors supporting or hindering
its adoption (e.g., effectiveness, perception of
use, cost, visibility to male partners, feel, partner
response), contexts of sexual activity in which
use of the female condom is more or less acceptable,
and what conditions are needed for them to be used
on a regular basis. In addition to the interviews,
staff will recruit 50 high-risk women and 50 male
partners of high-risk women participate in a survey
and a two-week trial of female condom use during
regular sexual activity. The structured survey explores
current sexual partners and activity, HIV risk,
and knowledge of, attitudes about, and prior experience
with the female condom. Participants will receive
an unlimited supply of female and male condoms (in
case they reject or cannot use the female condoms).
They will then be asked to complete a coital diary
in which they record daily sexual activity and use/non-use
of female/male condoms. Following the two-week period,
they are asked to bring the diary to ICR and complete
a follow-up survey regarding sexual activity, types
of partners with whom female condoms were/weren't
used, responses to the experience and likelihood
of incorporating female condoms into ongoing sexual
activity. Participants are asked to repeat the trial
one time; data from the second trial will be kept
separate from the first for analytical purposes. |
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Project Contact:
Margaret
Weeks, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator
Executive Director, ICR
Project Staff:
ICR
Margaret Weeks, Ph.D., Principal
Investigator
Jean J. Schensul, Ph.D.,
Co-Principal Investigator
Maryann Abbott, M.A.,
Project Coordinator
Katie Mosack, Ph.D.,
Data Analyst
Michelle Corbett, B.A., Ethnographer
Barbara Valdez, R.N., Outreach Interviewer
Mary Prince, H.S.,
Outreach Interviewer
CT AIDS Education & Training, Yale University School of Nursing
Laurie Sylla, M.H.S.A.,
Co-Principal Investigator
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