Discussion Post
PICOT Question: In young persons aged 18-24 years (P), can innovative communication and proactive health care delivery (I), compared to not providing sexual health education (C), increase the awareness of sexually transmitted diseases and encourage sexual decisiveness from the interventions provided to reduce the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases (O), within 6 months (T)?
The following is the plan for evaluating the effectiveness of sexually transmitted disease educational interventions and decreasing the rate of diagnosis in clinical practice.
• Clarifying the objectives and goals- The main objectives are to reduce the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases in the target population through proactive health care delivery and use of innovative communication through social media platforms. This will be accomplished by providing interventional education to patients in the clinic. For the purpose of this project, I have chosen to focus on ‘young people' aged 18-24 years, as this group accounts for over 50% of newly diagnosed sexually transmitted diseases in the United States.
• Focus of the evaluation- The stakeholders will be identified and assigned roles accordingly. Stakeholder needs will be identified in part of the evaluation process.
• Developing evaluation questions- The following questions will be addressed: How have participant behaviors changed as a result of the program? Do the participants feel positive perception with the utilization of social media for sexual health communication with peers and healthcare providers? Are participants satisfied with the experience? Were there any negative results from participation in the program?
• Developing evaluation design methods- An STD-Knowledge Questionnaire (STD-KQ), comprised of 27 close-ended questions aimed at identifying behavioral risks and knowledge deficits pertaining to sexually transmitted diseases (Jaworski & Carey, 2007). For this particular a dichotomous "yes/no" option will be used to organize responses vertically with ample space between responses to decrease the risk for error. The nominal measurement will consist of the presence or absence of sexually transmitted diseases. Statistical conclusion validity will be used to conclude variances and associations drawn from studies to correctly reproduce reality (Gray et al., 2017). The sample size will be comprised of 152 patients, 18-24 years of age. The sample size was calculated by 250 patient population, 95% sampling confidence level, and 5% margin of error (SurveyMonkey, 2021). The sampling strategy for the study will be stratified random sampling, the participants will be divided into subgroups based on gender. Stratified random sampling offers proper representation of the sample populations characteristics and can be divided into subgroups based on gender (Scribbr, 2020).
• Establishing a timeline for evaluation activities- The participants will receive the STD-KQ questionnaire at the beginning of the program, and will receive a second questionnaire at the end of a six-month time period. The independent variable pertaining to this project is innovative communication. The dependent variable is the rate of sexually transmitted diseases being diagnosed. Data on the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases prior to and after the interventional program will be collected and documented in the participants electronic medical record. Given the nature of the program, descriptive data will be used. According to Gray and colleagues (2017), prevalence and incidence suggest a descriptive research design with the intent of appropriately and methodically defining populace, characteristics, tendencies, groupings, and incidences. Data analysis will incorporate the use of a Chi-square test of independence, which is a non-parametric inferential statistic focused on nominal variables (Bhandari, 2020).
The response must include a reference list. One-inch margins, double-space, Using Times New Roman 12 pnt font and APA style of writing and citations.