Improving parent-adolescent communication about sexual and reproductive health

项目摘要 10-13岁的青春期早期是性发展的关键时期。这是一个时期， 大多数年轻人进入青春期，对身体、人际关系和性活动有了新的问题。 然而，大多数美国青少年在进入青春期早期时， 包容性的，全面的性教育，可以帮助他们建立信心和技能，他们需要 安全地协商新的性体验全面的性教育是一个行之有效的整体 有助于预防性传播感染和意外怀孕的干预措施， 促进性健康;这种教育的一个关键组成部分是父母的作用。家长可以提供 青少年在性和关系健康问题上得到指导和支持，但许多父母和 青少年从来没有关于性的有意义的谈话。这些对话可能会引起焦虑， 当前的解决方案，例如书籍、网站和培训研讨会，未能填补这一空白。许多这些 解决方案很难实施，更重要的是，往往无法帮助父母和他们的孩子建立 他们的沟通技巧。为了让父母和青少年之间关于性的对话更容易接近， 青少年健康研究公司，正在打造TheTalk：一个全面、个性化、文化敏感的平台， 使父母与青少年之间关于性的沟通现代化。TheTalk将是一个可定制和自适应的 对话教练，可以指导父母和他们的年轻青少年儿童（10-13岁）通过困难的 关于性健康和性保健的谈话。这是一个理想的阶段，教育青少年，因为他们是 开始进入青春期，对性更加好奇。与目前大多数解决方案不同，TheTalk将使用 在线，多媒体的方法，是从事一代青少年谁是习惯于连接， 在线学习。TheTalk还将为家长和青少年提供定制的多媒体资源 根据青少年的年龄和性别以及父母的价值观和最大的沟通障碍。在 在第一阶段的STTR项目中，我们将把TheTalk打造成一个最小可行产品（MVP），并收集最终用户 关于可用性、沟通功能和感知价值的反馈。目标1：我们将成立咨询委员会， 青少年和家长选择内容的初始平台是包容性的，医学上准确的，年龄- 适当的，文化相关的，高度参与。我们将与Oak City Labs合作， 我们的应用程序版本，可根据用户偏好进行定制，并在多个Web浏览器中运行。目标二： 然后，我们将对30对父母-青少年进行关于webapp UI/UX的可用性和可接受性研究 并迭代地更新设计和内容。完成本研究将产生我们的MVP， 提供关于设计和内容的初步反馈，以降低未来在更广泛人群中进行疗效研究的风险。成功 TheTalk的发展有可能帮助父母和青少年克服他们对谈论性的恐惧， 提高青少年关系技能，并最终减少性传播感染和意外怀孕。

PROJECT SUMMARY Early adolescence, between the ages of 10-13, is a critical time for sexuality development. It is a period when most young people enter puberty and have new questions about bodies, relationships, and sexual activity. However, the majority of US adolescents enter this early adolescent period without access to the kind of inclusive, comprehensive sex education that could help them develop the confidence and skills they need to safely negotiate new sexual experiences. Comprehensive sex education is a well-established holistic intervention that can help prevent sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unintended pregnancies and promote sexual wellbeing; a key component of this education is the role of parents. Parents can provide adolescents with guidance and support on sexual and relationship health issues, yet many parents and adolescents never have meaningful conversations about sex. These conversations can be anxiety-inducing, and current solutions, such as books, websites, and training workshops, are failing to fill this gap. Many of these solutions are difficult to implement and, more importantly, often fail to help both parents and their children to build their communication skills. In order to make parent-adolescent conversations about sex more approachable, Teen Health Research, Inc., is building TheTalk: a comprehensive, personalized, culturally-sensitive platform to modernize parent-adolescent communication about sex. TheTalk will be a customizable and adaptive conversation coach that can guide parents and their young adolescent children (ages 10-13) through difficult conversations regarding sexual health and wellness. This is an ideal stage to educate adolescents as they are starting puberty and becoming more curious about sexuality. Unlike most current solutions, TheTalk will use an online, multimedia approach that is engaging to a generation of teens who are accustomed to connecting and learning online. TheTalk will also deliver customized multimedia resources to both parents and adolescents based on the adolescent’s age and gender and the parent’s values and biggest barriers to communication. In this Phase I STTR project, we will build TheTalk into a Minimally Viable Product (MVP) and collect end-user feedback on usability, communication features, and perceived value. Aim 1: We will form advisory boards of adolescents and parents to select content for the initial platform that is inclusive, medically accurate, age- appropriate, culturally relevant, and highly engaging. We will work with Oak City Labs to create a test-ready version of our app that is customizable by user preference and functional across multiple web browsers. Aim 2: We will then perform a usability and acceptability study regarding webapp UI/UX on 30 parent-adolescent dyads and iteratively update design and content. Completion of this study will result in generation of our MVP and provide initial feedback on design and content to de-risk future efficacy studies in a wider population. Successful development of TheTalk has the potential to help parents and teens overcome their fears of talking about sex, improve adolescent relationship skills, and ultimately reduce STIs and unintended pregnancy.