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"Definition of
Sexual Health: Sexual health is an important
part of physical and mental health. It is a
key part of our identity as human beings
together with the fundamental human rights
to privacy, a family life, and living free
from discrimination. Essential elements of
good sexual health are equitable
relationships and sexual fulfilment with
access to information and services to avoid
the risk of unintended pregnancy, illness or
disease." (Department of Health 2001)
Sexual health is an important national and
international concern (Department of Health
2001 and 2005, BBC1 programme Panorama
"Love Hurts" 2005). Sexual health in a broad sense
covers a wide field including contraception,
sexually transmitted infections (or STIs)
and unwanted pregnancies, as well as healthy
sexual expression and bonding in couples.
Attitudes and behaviours towards
sexuality are key for appropriate boundaries
for sexuality or lack of them as shown in
cases of the use of child pornography,
sexual harassment and other sexual offences.
These are pressing issues in our society
today, involving rising costs and
overstretched services (BBC1 2005) as well
as a rising cost in terms of human distress.
For example, recent figures show that the
number of new episodes of STIs diagnosed in
England, Wales and Northern Ireland has
doubled in the last ten years. These include
increases in gonorrhoea (up by 148%),
chlamydia (195% increase) and infectious
syphilis (up by 380%) (Department of Health
2004).
The internet offers an easily accessible and
anonymous way of offering advice and
counselling on psychosexual issues to
individuals.
According to the recommendation of the
Independent Advisory Group on Sexual Health
and HIV prevention and education are key
strategies to deal with sexual health issues
(Department of Health 2004). However,
traditional services such as GUM clinics are
already unable to cope with demand and may
need an increase in capacity of 30 – 50%
(Dr. White, quoted in BBC1 2005) to keep
abreast of new infection rates. New
approaches and unconventional services which
allow for a quick and anonymous way to
access advice and counselling on sexual
health may be able to fill the gap in
educative and preventative services to some
extend. This project hopes to harness
the power of the internet for psychosexual
interventions (Cooper et al 2002) as well as
the power of action research to critically
reflect and improve service provision (Hart
and Bond 1995).
References
BBC1 (2005) "Love Hurts" Programme broadcast
on the 16.10.2005 in the Panorama series
Cooper, A., Scherer, C., Marcus, D.I.
(2002) Harnessing the Power of the Internet
to improve sexual relationships. In Cooper
(ed.) Sex and the Internet. A guidebook for
clinicians. Brunner Routledge, New York,
London
Department of Health (2001) The National
Strategy for Sexual Health and HIV
Department of Health (2004) Press
release: Independent Advisory Group tells
Government to focus on prevention of
sexually transmitted infections. Friday 18th
June, 9.00hrs
Department of Health (2005) Independent
Advisory Group on Sexual Health and HIV.
Annual Report 2004/2005
Hart, E., Bond, M. (1995) Action Research
for Health and Social Care. A guide to
practice. Open University Press, Buckingham,
Philadelphia
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