Risk behaviour for AIDS infection: na Internet questionnaire coupled with short texts on safe Sex and drug harm reduction for Portuguese Speakers

Strazza, L. , Azevedo, R.S.; Wen, C.L.; Massad, E.

Abstract
Risk behaviour surveillance for HIV-AIDS infection is generally made for specific groups like injecting drug users, prostitutes and prisoners, for whom the prevalence of this disease is expected to be highter than in general population. In this sense, much effort has been put on developing tools for applying questionnaires and role playing techniques that privilege those specific groups, both for mapping behaviour and planning intervention strategies to reduce HIV infection, coupled with educational programmes. This approach has been sucessful in its objectives, but left out most of the potential population at risk for HIV infection, namely adolescents and heterosexual adults, both male and female. In order to offer na educational source coupled with a questionnaire self-applied for a broader audience, we have created a homepage for sexual behaviour, accessible by the Internet. A complete interview has been developed, with questions tailored for three different age groups: 11 to 24, 25 to 59, and > 60 years of age. We also created a questionnaire for individuals known to be HIV positive. The homepage is written in Portuguese, primarily developed for Brazilian audience, and its URL is http://www.saudetotal.com/dim/sexoseg. From this point, it is possible for the “internaut” to register and get a username, and then begin to answer the questionnaire. It must be said that he/she will be anonymous during all the time visiting and answering the questions. From this point onwards, texts and situations put in dialogues are offered with educational purposes. This approach is based on Skinner’s learning technique and they are available for the Internauts every time they finish filling each stage of the questionnaire. The WEB pages have been produced with Microsoft FrontPage 98 (archives “.idc”, Internet Database Connector, and “.htx”, modified hypertext) The questionnaires have been stored in database archives who has been produced with Microsoft Visual Fox Pro 5.0 and they have utilised the technology of ODBC (Open Data Base Connectivity). After 1 year and 6 months we have received 69 teenager’s and 72 adult’s answers. Few of them were complete questionnaires (14 teenager’s and 8 adult’s). On the hand, one or two e-mail messages are sent everyday to the psychologist who coordinates the project and is responsible for analysing this database on our local server. It is important to highlight that the site of which this homepage is part (http://www.saudetotal.com), is visited monthly by more than 100,000 people looking for health information. Internauts seem to be more interested in asking specific questions to the psychologist by e-mail than to answer a questionnaire anonymously and solve personal problems by themselves. In a certain way, this experience failed in trying to make a behaviour surveillance because the number of complete questionnaires are not representative of a general population in Brazil. But is has shown that e-mail messages are na interesting mean to establish direct contact with people seeking a solution for specific sexual questions, doubts on AIDS transmission and even for relationship troubles or risk behaviour. The homepage is kept on and we plan to translate it to English, opening it for a broader audience.

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