Sexual Health Interventions: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

In the second of two companion papers, we conducted a meta-analysis of sexual health interventions in three domains. The interventions chosen for the meta-analysis were a subset of studies presented in a narrative review (the first of the two companion papers); these in turn were selected on the basis of fit to principles derived from the World Health Organization (WHO) and other definitions of sexual health. Studies (n = 20) were drawn from Medline and PsycINFO databases (English language, adult populations, 1996–2011) and fell into three domains: knowledge, attitudes, and sexual behaviors. We estimated intervention effects via Hedges' g, using the random-effects approach. Initial estimates revealed a large effect for knowledge, g = 1.32 (95% CI = 0.51–2.14), and smaller effects for attitude change, g = 0.17 (0.11–0.24) and behavior, g = 0.21 (0.13–0.29). After removing outliers to produce more precise estimates, the final effect sizes for knowledge, attitudes, and sexual behavior were, respectively, 0.25 (0.03–0.48), 0.18 (0.12–0.24), and 0.18 (0.11–0.24). Interventions yielded positive effects across populations and in all the domains studied.