Engineering an Online STI Prevention Program: CSE2

Completed · Not applicable

Conditions studied: Alcohol Consumption, Sexually Transmitted Diseases

In brief

The overall objective of the proposed research is to reduce the incidence of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among college students. The investigators propose to accomplish this by using the innovative, engineering-inspired multiphase optimization strategy (MOST) to develop a highly effective, appealing, economical, and readily scalable internet-delivered behavioral intervention targeting the intersection of alcohol use and sexual risk behavior. The rate of STIs on college campuses is alarming: one in four college students is diagnosed with an STI at least once during their college experience. Sexual activity when drinking alcohol is highly prevalent among college students. Alcohol use is known to contribute to the sexual risk behaviors that are most responsible for the transmission of STIs, namely unprotected sex, contact with numerous partners, and "hook-ups" (casual sexual encounters). Few interventions have been developed that explicitly target the intersection of alcohol use and sexual risk behaviors, and none have been optimized. In order to reduce the incidence of STI transmission among this and other high-risk groups, a new approach is needed. MOST is a comprehensive methodological framework that brings the power of engineering principles to bear on optimization of behavioral interventions. MOST enables researchers to experimentally test the individual components in an intervention to determine their effectiveness, indicating which components need to be revised and re-tested. Given the high rates of alcohol use and sex among college students, the college setting provides an ideal opportunity for intervening on alcohol use and sexual risk behaviors. The proposed study will include a diverse population of college students on 4 campuses which will increase the generalizability of the findings. The specific aims are to (1) develop and pilot test an initial set of online intervention components targeting the link between alcohol use and sexual risk behaviors, (2) use the MOST approach to build an optimized preventive intervention, and (3) evaluate the effectiveness of the newly optimized preventive intervention using a fully powered randomized controlled trial (RCT). This work will result in a new, more potent behavioral intervention that will reduce the incidence of STIs among college students in the US, and will lay the groundwork for a new generation of highly effective STI prevention interventions aimed at other subpopulations at risk.

Key facts

Study ID

NCT03408743

Run by

Penn State University

People needed

2946

Starts

2017-09-18

Expected to finish

2017-12-31

Last updated by the study team

2019-07-05

Who can join

Age: 18 and older, up to 30. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: accepted.

You may qualify if…

• Currently enrolled at an American college or university
• A first-year student or first-year transfer student
• 18 years of age or older
• Have not gone through previous versions of itMatters before

You may not qualify if…

• Not a first-year student or transfer student
• Younger than 18 years of age
• Have gone through previous versions of itMatters

Where it is running

• Fresno State University — Fresno, California, United States
• North Dakota State University — Fargo, North Dakota, United States
• Middle Tennessee State University — Murfreesboro, Tennessee, United States
• Texas A&M University — College Station, Texas, United States

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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