Primary Investigator The Hospital for Sick Children North York, Ontario, Canada
Background: Sexual activity and experimentation is typical during healthy youth development. Online messaging about sexual and reproductive health may influence adolescents' sexual health knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours. Research on sexual health and screen use among Canadian adolescents is limited and often lacks youth participation, despite evidence suggesting its importance in enhancing health interventions. The Adolescent Led Initiative for Exploring Sexual Health and Screen Use (ALLIES) is a youth research group investigating these potential effects of screen use on sexual health.
Objective: To develop and deliver a Youth-Led Participatory Action Research (YPAR) curriculum to train youth investigators to write a questionnaire for TARGet Kids! examining screen use and adolescent sexual health.
Design/Methods: Literature review on YPAR and adolescent health topics informed the curriculum design. Iterative feedback from both youth and adult researchers guided its development. 8 diverse youth researchers (aged 16 – 19) were recruited and underwent 6 days of training in research skills, YPAR principles, and adolescent health topics. Key themes of interest were identified for the questionnaire during training discussions. In accordance with these themes, questions from existing validated adolescent sexual health surveys were selected.
Results: The training curriculum engaged youth in team-building, topics in adolescent sexual and reproductive health rights , general adolescent health, YPAR principles, defining communities, identifying research themes, learning questionnaire development, and planning for knowledge translation and next steps. Youth researchers identified key questionnaire themes, including sexual activity level, safe sex practices, media influence, exposure to explicit content, cybersex, grooming, negotiating power in relationships, and self-image. Of particular interest was how media affects adolescent readiness for sex and perceptions of healthy relationships, identifying apps with high rates of unwanted sexual exposure among users, and exploring screen use's potential positive impacts on adolescent sexual health.
Conclusion(s): Next steps involve provincial survey dissemination by TARGetKids! and data analysis by youth investigators, along with evaluating the curriculum and youth engagement.
