Clinical Problem Statement
According to the data provided by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2015, the combined number of the cases of various sexually transmitted diseases was the highest in history; to be more precise, the three of the most common STDs – syphilis, chlamydia, and gonorrhea were reported by as many as 24 000, 400 000, and 1.5 million people accordingly (CDC, 2016).
Women are at a higher risk of contracting an STD than men; also, the percentage of women living with STDs such as chlamydia without knowing it is extremely high (over 75%) (FPA, 2016; “STD statistics & facts,” 2017). In that way, information and education are highly needed to raise awareness of the adolescent and young adult women and prevent the extension of STDs. Preferably, the dissemination of information should be carried out in school settings where the target population is easy to reach in large groups.
PICOT Question
PICOT question for the proposed study is the following:
Among adolescent and young adult females who are susceptible to STD (P), will nurse practitioners disseminating information about the disease and educating on prevention measures through an information drive (I) compared to social workers (C), resulting in reduced disease transmission and enhanced prevention care (O) over 6 months (T)?
Intervention
The intervention that will be tested in the proposed study is the dissemination of educational information about sexually transmitted diseases to adolescent and young adult females at schools. The comparison will be carried out between two groups of deliverers of the educational information – nurses and social workers. The effectiveness of the aforementioned educational sessions will be evaluated using post- and pre-testing to determine how well the students understood and remembered the new information. Also, the rates of STDs among the target populations will be measured before the implementation of the intervention and 6 months after to estimate the effectiveness of the delivered educational sessions in practice. Moreover, there is a way to increase the effectiveness of the study and evaluate the overall efficiency of the educational session and the information delivery carried out by both nurses and social workers; this approach will be explained further.
Study Design and Rationale
The proposed study will be based on quasi-experimental study design. This type of design was chosen because the study participants will not be randomly assigned to groups but selected and divided using convenience sampling which excludes the application of the experimental study design (Bates & Cozby, 2011). In particular, two similar groups of participants (according to age composition and size) will be selected from high and middle schools of one region. Each of the groups will receive an educational intervention from nurses or social workers for the comparison of their effectiveness.
A quasi-experimental study design was chosen because the participants will not be selected randomly and assigned to groups; in that way, an experimental design that is to be based on randomization would not be suitable. Besides, for the higher precision of the results, it is possible to draw comparisons between three instead of two groups of the participants. For that, a third group that would not receive any intervention should be selected; this approach may help evaluate the overall efficiency of the educational sessions delivered by both nurses and social workers.
References
Bates, S., & Cozby, P. (2011). Methods in behavioral research. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
CDC. (2016). Reported STDs at unprecedented high in the U.S.
FPA. (2016). Sexually transmitted infections factsheet.
STD statistics & facts. (2017).