Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• McCammon, Ellen
• Moore, Amy
• Tyler, Crystal P
• Arrington, Mason
• Jagoda, Patrick
• Sparrow, Ashlyn
• Gilliam, Melissa

Titel

HEARSAY: A STORYTELLING CARD GAME TO INCREASE KNOWLEDGE AND AWARENESS OF CONTRACEPTION AND PREEXPOSURE PROPHYLAXIS (PREP) AMONG HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

Ist Teil von

• Journal of adolescent health, 2020-02, Vol.66 (2S), p.S114

Ort / Verlag

New York: Elsevier BV

Erscheinungsjahr

2020

Quelle

Applied Social Sciences Index & Abstracts (ASSIA)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Purpose: While modern contraceptive methods are safe and effective, adolescents have lower levels of contraceptive awareness compared to women in other age groups. Additionally, despite high levels of HIV transmission among 13-29 year olds compared to other age groups, PrEP (Pre-exposure Prophylaxis) awareness among adolescents is low. There is a need for innovative, scalable ways to educate adolescents about contraception and PrEP. Games are a powerful tool to engage adolescents and model healthy behaviors. This study describes development and evaluation of the game Hearsay, a story-telling card game with an accompany curriculum, to shift contraceptive and PrEP knowledge, attitudes, and behavioral intentions. Methods: The intervention included Hearsay and an accompanying curriculum. Hearsay is a collaborative storytelling card game set in the first year of college. Hearsay was co-designed with adolescents during a three-week summer game-design program. Game cards introduce information about contraception and PrEP; to win the game, players must incorporate contraception and PrEP into their stories, helping to normalize open discussion about these topics. The curriculum, administered by educators, includes: a teach-back activity about contraception, a competitive quiz, and a discussion of a contraception negotiation scenario. Young people completed a pretest survey on contraception and PrEP knowledge, birth control motivation, and communication with sexual partners. Immediately post-intervention, participants completed a similar survey which additionally assessed game feasibility, usability, and acceptability. Wilcoxon signed-rank sum tests were used for continuous variables because data did not meet normality assumptions; McNemar's test was used for paired binary variables. Results: Forty-four high-school aged youth (median age 15) from the Chicago area participated in a 5-hour game-based learning program on contraception and sexual and reproductive health (SRH) communication led by Chicago teachers. Half of participants were male and half were female (all identified as cisgender). Most identified as black and/or Latinx. One-quarter reported previous sexual intercourse. Pre- and post-test scores suggest the intervention was associated with a significant increase in contraception knowledge (pre-test mean=6.61; post-test mean=10.48; p>.000001) and birth control motivation (pre-test mean=2.67; post-test mean=2.38; p>.001), where lower scores indicate increased motivation. The intervention was also associated with a significant increase in PrEP knowledge, with 56% of participants correctly answering the true/ false item at post-test, compared to 11% at pre-test (p<.0001). The measure of partner SRH communication attitudes increased significantly from pre-test (3.68/4) to post-test (3.77/4), p<.01. Regarding feasibility and acceptability, the majority of participants did not find the game difficult to play (90.9%) and enjoyed the use of storytelling (79.5%). The majority of participants (93.2%) rated the overall game experience as "good," "very good," or "excellent." Conclusions: Findings suggest that a card-based storytelling game is a promising method to promote contraceptive knowledge, contraceptive motivation, and communication around SRH among adolescents. The results of this study build on a growing body of evidence promoting the implementation of game-based learning in sexual and reproductive health.