Identifier	Thesis 1620
Author	Landry, Lyne S
Title	Safe sex education and the seriously mentally ill : a curriculum approach / Lyne S. Landry
Publisher	Central Connecticut State University
Date	2000
Resource Type	Master's Thesis
Notes	The purpose of this study was to improve safe-sex knowledge among seriously mentally ill clients living in a residential program. Many have recognized that education and prevention are the most important tools, and that increasing health knowledge is key to improving behaviors in response to personal risk. Specifically, researchers have found that chronic mentally ill adults living in urban areas are at an increased risk of HIV infection due to a lack of accurate health knowledge. The goal of the present study was to develop a curriculum, an organized educational effort that would help dispel myths, establish biological facts, provide an opportunity to talk about at-risk behaviors, and present ways to prevent high-risk behaviors. Participants were recruited from a residential facility located in urban New Haven. Fifty clients completed the study. In the first phase of the study participants filled out a 20-item questionnaire that was used as a pretest and as a needs assessment for the HIV and sexually transmitted diseases curriculum. Participants were then randomly assigned to either a control group or experimental group. The control group viewed a tape on sexually transmitted diseases, while the experimental group participated in the curriculum The curriculum was divided into four lessons, each lasting between 30 and 45 minutes. Each was comprised of a lecture, class participation, and activities. One week after the final lesson, both groups completed the original questionnaire as a posttest. A two-way ANOVA was conducted to analyze for pre- and posttest intervention differences. The ANOVA indicated no significant main effects for either group or time period (pre or post), nor was there any significant group by time period interaction, thus the basic hypothesis that exposure to this curriculum would result in greater knowledge regarding HIV was not supported. Pre- and post-test means for both experimental and control groups clustered at the high end of the scale suggesting that the instrument used was perhaps too simplistic, and created a ceiling effect which may have hidden any knowledge gains experienced by the experimental group. This and other possible limiting factors in the study are discussed as well as specific suggestions for future research with this population.
Subject	Sex instruction for people with mental disabilities
Department	Department of Psychology
Advisor	Goldstein, Marc B.
Type	Text
Digital Format	application/pdf
Language	eng
OCLC number	48108523
Rating

Safe sex education and the seriously mentally ill : a curriculum approach / Lyne S. Landry

Description

Tags

Comments