Dr. Silvina Arrossi and her team based in the Center of Study for the State and Society (CEDES) won the 2020 International Innovation Grant (IIG) 2020 awarded by Conquer Cancer, The ASCO FOUNDATION
It is expected that Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine programs and HPV-testing will lead to the elimination of cervical cancer over the next decades. HPV infection is a common sexually transmitted disease. Common consequences of a positive test result include anxiety, fear of cancer, shame, worries about future sexual relationships and questions about the partner’s sexual behavior.
This psychosocial (PS) impact of HPV-testing can result in decreased women’s quality of life, including a deepening of gender inequality and violence. Also, HPV PS impact might result in misunderstandings of clinical indications, as well as fear, disease denial, or women not considering it necessary to continue follow-up. Thus, the HPV PS might reduce women’s ability to complete follow-up care.
The general aim of this project is to develop a Counseling App for HPV-tested women and ask women their opinions about how the App will be organized, what content must have and content’s wording preferences. First, we will conduct four group interviews with HPV tested women to explore their opinions about its content needs, functions, and design. Then, we will translate these findings into a set of App functions requirements and design proposals. Finally, we will carry out participatory sessions, in which the proposed design will be evaluated and refined iteratively with users. These data will be used to develop the final Counseling App’s information architecture.
The project will be carried out in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, where HPV testing is offered in public health institutions. The approach is innovative because is proposing an effective solution to provide support to HPV-tested women; to our knowledge no counselling App for HPV-testing is available in Argentina or worldwide.