Use your browser's BACK button to return to your page of origin.
Psychological mediating factors in an intervention to promote
adolescent health care-seeking.
Psychology, Health, & Medicine 2005;10(1):64-77.
Hogben M, Ledsky R, Middlestadt SE, VanDevanter NL, Messeri P, Merzel
C, Bleakley A, Sionean CK, St. Lawrence JS.
Abstract
Some of the highest rates of curable sexually transmitted diseases in the USA
are found among adolescents. Routine, comprehensive health care that includes
a sexual history may contribute to alleviating this problem. We designed
and ran a three-session small-group workshop for adolescents, using local
community organizations as intervention sites, with peers (typically 2-3
years older) helping facilitate the interactive sessions. Outcomes are summarized
elsewhere: in this paper, we present an examination of theoretically based
psychological mediating factors that we sought to influence during the intervention.
Adolescents' health care-seeking beliefs, general attitudes to seeking care,
and intentions to do so all changed such that they held more positive beliefs,
evaluated health care more favorably, and developed stronger intentions to
seek care. Furthermore, relationships among these constructs were strengthened
according to theoretical precepts. Adolescents' self-efficacy and their perceptions
of social norms pertaining to health care-seeking, however, were unaffected
by the intervention. We explored gender differences in mediating factors,
finding no interaction, although females did score higher on post-intervention
attitude and intention measures.