Development and pilot of a novel digital puberty self-assessment tool

随着年轻人的成长，从童年走向成年，他们经历的一个关键变化是青春期。青春期是一个改变我们身体的过程，这样我们就可以有孩子了，但是控制青春期的激素也参与了许多其他的变化。青春期可能与一些年轻人所经历的情绪低落和焦虑、他们的成长和睡眠方式以及他们的思维和行为方式有关。如果我们能理解这些与青春期的联系，我们就能弄清楚年轻人是如何以不同的方式发展的，并考虑当这些变化出错时，一些年轻人会发生什么。然而，做青春期研究是具有挑战性的，因为目前的工具不准确，也不适合年轻人，也不能代表当今英国年轻人的多样性。我们的项目旨在开发一种新的数字方式，让年轻人报告他们在青春期注意到的身体变化。我们将使年轻人能够轻松、安全地使用这些工具，并使其对所有年轻人都具有包容性。这种新的“工具”需要准确，但不需要医生检查。年轻人将参与该工具开发的所有阶段，年轻设计师将成为设计团队的活跃成员。他们将与伦敦大学学院和大奥蒙德街儿童医院经验丰富的儿童和青少年医生、计算机程序员、图形设计师以及伦理学和统计学专家团队合作。这个新的数字工具将被设计用于平板电脑或电脑上。首先，让一个年轻人从屏幕上的一组绘制的人物中选择一个在肤色、体型和身材方面最像自己的人。只有年轻人会看到他们的身影，这不会显示脸。它不会被任何研究人员或医生看到。接下来，该工具将引导年轻人了解青春期发育的各个方面，用图片和文字与其他年轻人一起解释发育的各个阶段，并询问年轻人是否注意到自己身体上的这些变化。他们被问及的变化将取决于他们在出生时被确定为男性还是女性，其原因将在工具中解释。被问及青春期可能会让人感到不舒服和尴尬。该工具的设计将通过以下方式尽可能减少这种情况：(1)语言对年轻人友好且包容；(2)确保我们所有人的身体和发育都是不同的；(3)年轻人如有任何忧虑或顾虑，可向谁倾诉的资料；(4)多项安全和隐私功能。试点研究：新的数字青春期工具将通过要求120名8-16岁的年轻人试用来进行测试。这些人将是在医院诊所接受医生青春期检查的年轻人，这是他们正常医疗保健的一部分。试点研究将通过比较年轻人给出的答案和医生的评分来显示新工具是否准确，并将询问年轻人对该工具的看法，包括使用的容易程度和理解程度。项目影响：这个新的数字青春期评估工具将允许研究人员在他们的研究中更准确地测量青春期，包括计划中的青少年健康研究。这将增进我们对青春期如何与青春期期间身心健康问题的发展有关的理解，以及青春期在青少年行为、睡眠和营养发展中的作用。与目前测量青春期的方法不同，新工具将与年轻人一起开发，并被设计为对年轻人友好，并代表我们社会中各种各样的年轻人。我们希望这将意味着更多的年轻人将同意参与研究，并且所进行的研究包括所有年轻人的观点和经历。

As young people grow up and move from childhood to adulthood, one of the key changes they experience is puberty. Puberty is the process that changes our bodies so that we can have children, but the hormones that control puberty are involved with many other changes as well. Puberty can be linked to the feelings of low mood and anxiety that some young people experience, how they grow and sleep, and how they may think and behave. If we can understand these links with puberty, we can work out how young people develop in different ways, and consider what happens for some young people when these changes go wrong. However, doing puberty research is challenging as the current tools are not accurate or young person friendly and do not represent the diversity of young people in the UK today.Our project aims to develop a new digital way for young people to report the puberty changes they have noticed in their bodies. We will make this easy and safe for young people to use and inclusive for the whole range of young people. This new 'tool' will need to be accurate but without needing a doctor examination. Young people will be involved in all stages of the development of the tool, with young designers as active members of the design team. They will work with a highly experienced team of children and young people's doctors, computer programmers, graphics designers, and specialists in ethics and statistics, based at University College London and Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children.This new digital tool will be designed to work on tablets or computers. First a young person will choose from a set of drawn figures on the screen which looks most like them in terms of skin tone, and body shape and size. Only the young person will see their figure, which won't show faces. It will not be seen by any of the researchers or doctors. Next, the tool will guide a young person through aspects of their puberty development, explaining the stages of development that usually happen with pictures and words written with other young people, and asking the young person if they have noticed those changes in their body. The changes they are asked about will depend on whether they were identified as male or female at birth, and the reasons for this will be explained in the tool.Being asked about puberty can be uncomfortable and embarrassing. The tool's design will seek to reduce this as much as possible by having: (1) language that is young person friendly and inclusive; (2) reassurance that all our bodies and development are different; (3) information on who to speak to if the young person has any worries or concerns; and (4) a number of safety and privacy features.Pilot study: The new digital puberty tool will be tested by asking 120 young people aged 8-16 years to try it out. These will be young people attending hospital clinics who are having a doctor puberty examination as part of their normal medical care. The pilot study will show if the new tool is accurate by comparing the answers young people give to the doctor ratings, and will ask the young person their opinions about the tool including how easy it is to use and how understandable it is.Project Impact: This new digital puberty assessment tool will allow researchers to measure puberty more accurately in their studies, including the planned Adolescent Health Study. This will improve our understanding of how puberty is involved with the development of mental and physical health problems during adolescence and the role of puberty in the development of adolescent behaviours, sleep and nutrition. Unlike the current options for measuring puberty, the new tool will be developed with young people and be designed to be young person friendly and to represent the diverse range of young people in our society. We hope that this will mean that more young people will agree to take part in research, and that the research that happens includes the views and experiences of all young people.