Women’s unequal position in sexual negotiations highlights the need for methods, such as the female condom, that they can initiate. In South Africa, the female condom has been endorsed as a pregnancy and disease prevention method, and, since the launch of a government-sponsored introductory strategy, demand has been growing. The female condom has the potential to enhance women’s bargaining power within their relationships, but its successful use also depends on male partner cooperation. Few interventions for women to learn female condom negotiation skills have been developed and evaluated, especially in settings such as South Africa, where unequal gender relations pose a special challenge. The proposed study will develop and test a two-session, culture-specific, group-based female condom negotiation and insertion skills intervention on a South African university campus. Participants will be assessed prior to and immediately post-intervention, and at three and six months thereafter. If successful, this brief intervention should be widely replicable in other similar settings.
Project Investigators
Elizabeth Kelvin
Associate Professor
Department Chairperson
Epidemiology and Biostatistics
