Reducing the Risk of HIV Among Adolescent Girls :: essays research papers

According to the CDC, the majority of female adolescents will have had at least one sexual partner by the time they impact the age of 18. Once reserved for high school students, sex ed is now being introduced in junior high and even childlike schools. It is undeniable that our teenagers argon becoming sexually active earlier and inevitably, are vulnerable to sexually transmitted infections and HIV. While it is impossible to alter the choices of sexually active teens once they have been made, it is a mandate for those who interact with them to dress teens with the proper resources to make smart choices and offer suggestions to modify attempty behavior.The commence of this particular study was deuce-fold. First, the authors studied the possibility and practicality of reducing the HIV risk among adolescent girls through the utilization of a small group, community-based setting. Secondly, the effectiveness and emolument of such an intervention was determined and further analyzed u sing a sustainled design. In the examination of statistical closedown validity pertaining to this study, one menace that is imperative for the reader to consider lies in the scummy statistical place of the study. With 129 girls recruited, less than half (62) attended either the HIV or control intervention groups with only 48 completing the three month number up session. Polit and Beck states that studies with low statistical power whitethorn not watch over in establishing a human relationship between the variables. As a take flight study, it is hardly dismissive and worth noting that, at best, a relationship may be present or could be present between the two variables, however, the low statistical power causes me to hesitate to assign an irrefutable relationship between the intervention group and reduced risk behavior as demonstrated by the behavioral changes (decreased substance abuse, increased knowledge on HIV prevention, fewer engagement in risky sexual behavior). The a uthors adjudge this threat to the statistical conclusion validity but also note that outcomes were encouraging. Attrition presents a threat to both statistical conclusion and internal validity. In the aforementioned statistics, it is obvious to deduce that attrition was a direct result of the unavailability of many girls, which consequently resulted in low statistical power. The attrition rate in this study can be considered random as it was blamed on work schedules and inability to ricochet contact and did not alter extraneous characteristics of those remaining in the study.