Wrapped intervention development

Role: Project lead

Funder: Medical Research Council (MRC), Public Health Intervention Development (PHIND) scheme (project reference: MR/N010922/1)

Dates: September 2015 to March 2017

Background

Young people aged 16-24 years are disproportionately affected by sexually transmitted infections (STIs). STIs can have serious health consequences for affected individuals and the estimated annual cost of treatment to the National Health Service is £620 million. Accordingly, the UK government has made reducing the rates of STIs among this group a priority. A

missed opportunity to intervene to increase condom use is when young people obtain self-sampling kits for STIs via the internet.

What did we do?

Using Intervention Mapping and working with young people, we co-designed an intervention to increase condom use amongst 16-24-years-olds accessing chlamydia self-sampling websites

What did we develop?

We developed a digital behaviour change intervention called 'Wrapped'. The intention is for users of existing chlamydia self-sampling websites to be signposted to Wrapped after placing an order for an STI self- sampling kit. Salient barriers to condom use are identified by each user and relevant intervention components are allocated to target these. The components include the following: (1) a sample box of condoms, (2) an online condom distribution service, (3) a product for carrying condoms, (4) a condom demonstration video, (5) a series of videos on communication about condom use, and (6) erotic films of real couples discussing and demonstrating condom use.

Next steps

We were successful in securing funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) to run a subsequent study to assess the feasibility of running a full trial of Wrapped. See project 'Wrapped feasibility RCT'.

Publications

Newby, K., Crutzen, R., Brown, K., Bailey, J., Saunders, J., Szczepura, A., Hunt, J., Alston, T., S Sadiq, T., Das, S. (2019). Wrapped: Development of an intervention to increase condom use amongst users of chlamydia self-sampling websites. JMIR Formative Research, 3(2), doi:10.2196/11242.