Online Counseling to Enhance Sexual Health of Young Adults under 25: Results Contextual Inquiry

The current approach for improving sexual health of young adults under 25 in the Netherlands is supported via the national website Sense.info, integrated with the face-to-face sexual counselling organized by designated regional Municipal Health Services (MHS). Evaluations among the target group of young adults show that the need for face-to-face counselling is limited. This means the current approach is not productive. A holistic eHealth approach is used to identify how sexual health can be improved from the perspective of different stakeholders, such as the MHS and the involved non-governmental organizations, which are in close contact of the target groups. The CeHRes roadmap1 used to guide the in-depth interviews and focus groups with the stakeholders to assess the expectations and conditions for sexual health via eHealth technology. The purpose of this paper is to identify the needs of various users in a web based or blended sexual care services. In the first phase, the contextual inquiry phase, information is gathered about the wishes, apprehended(?)problems and needs of the intended users and the environment in which the technology should be implemented. In the second phase, the value specification phase, the values of the key stakeholders are determined and subsequently translated into functionalities for the design and critical factors for the implementation. The results suggest stepped care is needed which is tailored to several different targets groups and consists of different types of web based eHealth services like chat, email, website, as well as traditional face-to-face counselling. The integration of these technologies is intended to improve support of / towards various target groups. The broad range of sexual care services will not only allow to better reach new target groups among young adults, but can also offer a cost effective way to offer optimally suited care for every target group.