EXPLORING THE ACCEPTABILITY OF ONLINE STI TESTING FOR RURAL YOUNG PEOPLE IN VICTORIA

Abstract

Rural young people living in Australia experience disadvantage in service access for STI testing and treatment. As such, innovative programmes using telemedicine have been developed but results show relatively low usage. Websites offering free online STI testing address issues of access; however acceptability of these services to rural young people is unknown. Participants were recruited from small country towns in Victoria and grouped by gender and age. During focus groups participants were asked to discuss their access to local sexual health services (what services they used, when, why and how) and then shown a website and asked to provide feedback about online STI testing. Fifty participa..