Research has found that adolescent girls and women with a history of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) report more risky sexual behaviors than their non-abused counterparts. Risk behaviors include early age of first intercourse, multiple sex partners, exchange of sex for drugs, money or a place to stay, unprotected sex, increased use of alcohol and drugs and their sequelae including unplanned pregnancy and STDs. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) demonstrated that STD prevention efforts are effective with women who were abused as children but the results did not hold at the six-month follow-up. To date, no study has focused on adolescent girls.
The Skills Training for Assertiveness, Responsibility and Safety (S.T.A.R.S) Project, funded by CDC and conducted by the Philadelphia Health Management Corporation, was designed to identify the most promising strategies for intervening with young, sexually abused girls before risky sexual behaviors become well established in their intimate relationships. The study focuses on girls ages 13-16 years who have been sexually abused. The presentation will describe and discuss the best practices for recruiting adolescents who have been sexually abused and lessons learned about how to retain them in a prevention program. Preliminary results of the intervention with the initial groups of girls will also be presented.
Learning Objectives: The audience will learn: to describe the strategies used to recruit adolescent girls who have been sexuallly abused; to understand new and inventive ways to retain adolescent girls in an STD prevention program; and to explain the preliminary results of the program.
Keywords: Adolescent Health, Sexual Risk Behavior
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.