Ricerc@Sapienza

The World Health Organization (WHO) aims to determine the global applicability of a survey tool designed to assess sexual health practices and behaviours by testing it in a variety of demographics of the general population around the world. This process will require verifying the comprehensibility of the constructs on a global level and the consistency and correctness with which the constructs are evaluated when translated and implemented in different contexts. This project aims to bring the Italian contribution to this global research under the umbrella of the WHO. The cognitive interview will be used to determine if the participants are able to understand and answer the questions of the tool effectively; it will also determine whether questions are interpreted as intended. The research team will deal with the process of translation and adaptation of the tool into the Italian language as well as the administration of the tool through the cognitive interview. The target population of this study will be the general population over the age of 18 with a focus on involving also members of rural communities, people with physical disabilities, lesbian, gay, bisexual and / or transgender people and the elderly. The target population of this study will be recruited throughout the Italian territory using the internet and social media and the interviews will be conducted via teleconference. This project gives the great opportunity to participate in a multicentred research that counts more than 40 countries involved globally and that is supervised by an international leading institutional body such as the WHO. Moreover, at the national level, the Italian participation in this project provides for the possibility of collecting national data on variables of extreme interest for sexual and reproductive health, that could help identifying critical areas of interest for future policy making and health related programs in Italy.