SpeakOut: Empowering teen to teen communication about highly effective contraception.

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Investigator: Christine Dehlendorf, MD, MAS

Location(s): United States

Description

Teen pregnancy results from sexually active adolescents' under-use of effective contraception. The most effective reversible methods - intrauterine devices (IUDs) and subdermal contraceptive implants, collectively referred to as long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) - have low rates of use among adolescents. Social networks are important influences on teen contraceptive knowledge and use. Encouraging social communication to increase knowledge and acceptability of LARC among female adolescents can increase use of these methods.

The Share Health Study is a cluster randomized control trial, randomized at the primary participant level. Primary participants will be randomized to receive either SpeakOut or a control intervention about alcohol use immediately before intervention delivery on the day of their clinic appointment. A cluster consists of primary participants and the secondary participants recruited to the study via a specialized snowball sampling procedure carried
out with the assistance of the primary participant, described below.

The design of SpeakOut was initially motivated by a qualitative study performed by Dr. Dehlendorf's team that found that adolescent IUD users report that a lack of social communication about this method is a barrier to IUD use. Dr. Dehlendorf's team then performed further qualitative work designed to understand the transmission of information about contraception within social networks, with the goal of informing a social-network-based intervention. The investigators confirmed that social communication is an influential factor in contraceptive decision making, and that it is considered particularly important to speak to individuals who have personal experience with specific methods. However, participants reported often hearing negative information about these methods, particularly IUDs, through their social network.