A Randomized Online Health Experiment for a Safer Youth Sexual Behaviour

January 4, 2016 updated by: Elia Gabarron, University Hospital of North Norway

Study on Sexually Transmitted Diseases Prevention - Introduction of a Novel Game-based Appointment System for Youth

The objective of this project is to assess the impact of a Game-Based Appointment System on both, the clinical settings, and on the use of the educational web app www.sjekkdeg.no.

An A/B testing methodology will be used. This methodology consist on the redirection of the users to two different versions of the website, and therefore allows to assess the interactivity of the users according to the design of the webpage and determine which one has a higher impact on the clinical settings, and consequently on prevention of STDs.

For the A/B test we will test the interactivity of two versions of a web page www.sjekkdeg.no: the A version (control), consisting en the educative web app; and the B version, consisting in the web app www.sjekkdeg.no including the Game-Based Appointment System.

The Game-Based Appointment System will offer the users the option of booking appointments at the venereology department at the University Hospital of North Norway. The system will include an automatic priority appointments function, with three levels of prioritization (triage): 1) Emergency-appointment: The user should go to the doctor on the same day or the following day. 2) Haste-appointment: Within 3-4 days; or 3) Routine-appointment: within 2-3 weeks.

The hypotheses of this research project are:

  1. The number of visits with the health professionals will be larger in the game-based appointment group than in the control group.
  2. The number of visits to the educative components of www.sjekkdeg.no will increase after the launch of the Game-Based Appointment System functionality.
  3. The number of visits to the educative components of www.sjekkdeg.no will be larger in the appointment group than in the control group.
  4. The time spent per visit to the website will be larger in the appointment group than in the control group, meaning a higher exposure to health information.
  5. The visitors returning rate is larger in the appointment group than in the control group.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

- Compliance with strategic documents: This project is in line with recommendations made by the Norwegian Public Health Authorities, that state that ìchange of sexual practice, i.e., increased used of condoms and fewer partners, will be the main focus of containment (of sexually transmitted diseases).

- Relevance to society: The premise guiding the development of the Game-Based Appointment System is that Information and Communication Technology may facilitate the access to health services to youth regarding sexual health and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, as well as increase their exposure in an educative environment. Early triage of health service consumers is now more and more used as an effective way to reduce expenses and the use of healthcare staff resources.

- Environmental perspectives: The project will provide a health related social network aimed at empowering the citizens to better understand and prevent sexually transmitted diseases, therefore minimizing the number of travels to visit the doctor at the healthcare service.

- Ethical aspects: The research activities will strictly follow the regulations provided by the Health Register Act (Helseregisterloven) and the Health Personnel Act (Helsepersonelloven). Both acts (with accompanying regulations) being supervised by the Ministry of Health and the Norwegian Board of Health. To guarantee approval regarding any possible use of data in a personal way, this project will pursue conformance to the regulations of the Personal Data Act (based on the European Data Protection Directive). The Personal Data act and other relevant acts and regulations are enforced and supervised by the Norwegian Data Inspectorate (Datatilsynet).

- Gender equality and gender perspectives: The planning of the this research project has stressed that the selection of participants and the conduct of the trial will all be gender-neutral.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

996

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Norway
      • Tromso, Norway, 9019
        • NST-Norwegian Center for Integrated Care and Telemedicine; University Hospital of North Norway

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Child
  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • All the users reaching voluntarily the web app www.sjekkdeg.no and answering "Yes" to the question "Are you from Tromsø?" will be included in the study.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • All the users reaching voluntarily the web app www.sjekkdeg.no and answering "No" to the question "Are you from Tromsø?" will not be included in the study; however, they will be allowed to surf the website.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Single

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: Control Group
Users randomized to the www.sjekkdeg.no A version, consisting en the educative web app, not including the Game-Based Appointment System
Experimental: Intervention Group
Users randomized to the www.sjekkdeg.no B version, consisting in the web app www.sjekkdeg.no including the Game-Based Appointment System
Behavioral: Game-Based Appointment System
Users randomized to the www.sjekkdeg.no B version, consisting in the web app www.sjekkdeg.no including the Game-Based Appointment System

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Impact of the Game-Appointment System on the number of consultancies of sexually transmitted diseases with the health professionals in Tromso.
Time Frame: After one year of the launch of the Game-Based Appointment System.
To assess if the Game-Based Appointment System increase the number of consultancies on sexually transmitted diseases with the health professionals in Tromsø, we will analyse the total number of appointments booked through the Game-Based Appointment System after 1 year of the start of the project. And we will compare the total number of sexually transmitted diseases consultancies in all health professionals Tromsø with a reference number ranging from 1000 to 1999 (Group A) versus total number of consultancies with codes ranging between 2000 and 2999 (Group B).
After one year of the launch of the Game-Based Appointment System.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Impact of the Game-Based Appointment System on the number of visits to the educative components of the web app www.sjekkdeg.no, and its utilisation.
Time Frame: After one year of the launch of the Game-Based Appointment System.

To assess if the launch of the Game-Based Appointment System increase the number of visits to the educative component of the app www.sjekkdeg.no we will analyse and compare the absolute number and per cent of visits (new visitors and returning visitors) of users in Group A versus Group B after 1 year of the start of the project. The total number of visitors as well as the number of news and returning visitors in both versions of web app and every of its components will be tracked through Google Analytics.

To assess the impact of the launch of the Game-Based Appointment System on the utilisation of the web app www.sjekkdeg.no, we will analyse and compare the total and average time spent on the web app and in every educative component of users in Group A versus Group B after 1 year of the start of the project. The total time spent in both versions of the web app as well as the average time spent on every of its components will be tracked through Google Analytics.
After one year of the launch of the Game-Based Appointment System.

Other Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Opinion of health professionals on the benefit from the Game-Based Appointment System.
Time Frame: After one year of the launch of the Game-Based Appointment System.
To assess if health professionals (doctors and nurses) can have a benefit from such a system through reduced consultation times due to previous acquired information by the symptom checker, a qualitative approach consisting on an adhoc questionnaire based on the Technology Acceptance Model.
After one year of the launch of the Game-Based Appointment System.
Opinion of users on the benefit from the Game-Based Appointment System.
Time Frame: After one year of the launch of the Game-Based Appointment System.
To assess if the users can have a benefit from this Game-Based Appointment System and how this functionality helped them in the decision to book an appointment at the doctor, a qualitative approach, consisting on an adhoc questionnaire based on the Technology Acceptance Model.
After one year of the launch of the Game-Based Appointment System.

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University Hospital of North Norway

Collaborators

Helse Nord

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Elia Gabarron, MsC, Psych, NST-Norwegian Center for Integrated Care and Telemedicine; University Hospital of North Norway

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Helpful Links

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

January 1, 2015

Primary Completion (Actual)

December 1, 2015

Study Completion (Actual)

December 1, 2015

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

April 29, 2014

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 30, 2014

First Posted (Estimate)

May 1, 2014

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

January 5, 2016

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

January 4, 2016

Last Verified

January 1, 2016

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • NST-40656

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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