Young Women's Reasons to Seek Sexually Transmitted Infection Screening. Issue 5 (28th April 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Backonja, Uba; Royer, Heather R.; Lauver, Diane R.
• Is Part Of: Public health nursing. Volume 31:Issue 5(2014:Sep./Oct.)
• Page Start: 395
• Page End: 404
• Publication Date: 2014-04-28
• Subjects: Public health nursing -- Periodicals; 610.734
• DOI: 10.1111/phn.12125
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0737-1209

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main" id="phn12125-abs-0001"> <title>Abstract</title> <sec id="phn12125-sec-0001" sec-type="section"> <title>Objectives</title> <p>To describe young women's reasons to seek and not to seek sexually transmitted infection (STI) screening; to explore whether reasons differed by age and STI screening history.</p> </sec> <sec id="phn12125-sec-0002" sec-type="section"> <title>Design and Sample</title> <p>Cross‐sectional, descriptive. Female students (<italic>N</italic> = 216) at a university in the Midwestern United States.</p> </sec> <sec id="phn12125-sec-0003" sec-type="section"> <title>Measures</title> <p>An anonymous online survey was designed based on the Theory of Care Seeking Behavior and literature regarding STI screening among young women.</p> </sec> <sec id="phn12125-sec-0004" sec-type="section"> <title>Results</title> <p>The most common reason to seek STI screening was to start treatment promptly (85%); the most common reason not to seek screening was being asymptomatic (54%). Participants' reasons differed by age and screening history. Women under 25 were more likely than women 25 and older to seek screening because of encouragement from female role models (<italic>p</italic> < .01). Women who had never been screened were more likely than women who had been screened to avoid screening because of embarrassment (<italic>p</italic> < .05). Novel findings included seeking STI screening because it "should be done" if sexually active and because of encouragement from female role models.</p> </sec> <sec id="phn12125-sec-0005" sec-type="section"> <title>Conclusions</title> <p>Health care and public health professionals can use these findings to develop strategies to improve STI screening rates among young women.</p> </sec> </abstract>