ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY on Impact of text and email messaging on the sexual health of young people
Lim, M. S., Hocking, J. S., Aitken, C. K., Fairley, C. K., Jordan, L., Lewis, J. A., & Hellard, M. E. (2012). Impact of text and email messaging on the sexual health of young people: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 66(1), 69-74. doi:10.1136/jech.2009.100396
There have been many challenges behind health promotion programs, the main challenge being the lack of appropriate channel s of communication which can reach all the people even those in rural areas. So, unless this challenge has been addressed, any health promotion program cannot be seen as successful. Multiple channel approach to enlighten local residents on the program has been identified as one of the effective approach on the matter.
As a contribution towards this challenge, Lim, Hocking, Aitken, Fairley, Jordan, Lewis, & Hellard (2012), conducted a randomized trial on the use mobile of text messages and emails as a new health promotion method. The main aim of the trial was to reveal the effects of the approach on the sexual health life of young people. Considering four of this journal’s authors, it’s beyond any reasonable doubt that the journal must be of good quality, because experience is power. Megan has written 87 publications, Campbell 146 publications, Jane 407 publications while Christopher is the hero among the four with 834 publications. Well, experience is one of the key factors contributing to success in academic journals and that gives an assurance of quality in this journal as it went through experienced hands. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
One of the greatest strengths of this journal is its approach, the technological approach to health promotion. It’s clearly evident that a large percentage of the past health promotion approaches have been grounded on the traditional methods such as campaign exhibitions which were faced by one major shortcoming of coverability. This is in consideration to the fact that those who could be reached are only those around the area of the event. But through their proposed approach, they only need to connect with mobile service providers to get contacts and distribute health promotion messages which will reach many people within a very short time.
However, this approach faces one major limitation, its only effective for those who are literate in the society. To be able to read and understand the message being conveyed by a certain text message, the owner of the phone must be literate otherwise the message will be of no use since he or she cannot get what is being communicated in regard to a certain disease or infection. As an addition to this limitation, the people who don’t own a phone are also likely to be excluded from the group that will benefit from this approach. This is because messages are distributed based on phone numbers.
From a deep scrutiny of this journal, it comes out clear that the authors provided a good rationale for their study. Firstly, they went followed the path of important matters first and addressed the issue of STIs not because they are the only infections observable in the current society but because their rates were increasing than any other. And that was a brilliant approach. Again they targeted the people of age bracket 16-29 years not because they were the only ones who had cases of STIs but because they were the ones at the highest risks of getting STIs according to prior research study reports of Annual Chlamydia.
Looking at the research design of this journal, it is an appropriate design especially for a topic like this because of several reasons. Its music festival setting is very important because it sets the research free of bias. In a music festival, youths are expected from all walks of life and therefore the data collected is not restricted at one region but different regions. The sample size involved in the research was also relatively high to come up with reliable information, 994people. However, this researched is likely to have been biased because of their failure to balance the sample size between women and men. Naturally, men are known to be ignorant and may opt to respond to questionnaires anyhow but women are keen on whatever they do. So, if the sample size had more men or more women, the results are likely to be biased.
The results analyses as presented are appropriate because of several reasons. Whatever the rate has been given in the results, it was always supported by the real figures used to realize such a percentage. Such supportive information can be used in case of any doubts on the validity of data to clear the doubts. For instance, the percentages of those participants who completed and those who did not complete the three follow up questionnaires has been given as 34 and 39 respectively and supported by the real figures 337 and 387 respectively.
The authors concluding remarks align with the results of the research. They concluded that the intervention improved STI knowledge in both sexes and STI testing on the side of women and that’s true in accordance to the results presented in regard to the same where for both intervention groups the STI knowledge was rated at 95%. To cater for latter concluding remark, the female likelihood of taking an STI test was rated at 95% when for men was rated at 5%.
Generally, this study was superb, guess it is because among its authors were a clique of experienced ladies and gentlemen. If only they could narrow down in the sample size and break it equally between men and women, this could be a sure way of avoiding gender bias and realizing more reliable results.
References
Lim, M. S., Hocking, J. S., Aitken, C. K., Fairley, C. K., Jordan, L., Lewis, J. A., & Hellard, M. E. (2012). Impact of text and email messaging on the sexual health of young people: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 66(1), 69- 74. doi:10.1136/jech.2009.100396