Preventing Sexual Violence in College Men: RealConsent for Use in Vietnam

Emory University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Sexual Violence

Treatments: Behavioral: Adapted RealConsent; Behavioral: Health Education Control Condition

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04147455

IRB00099860

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study is a randomized controlled trial using a web-based adaptation of the RealConsent program among eligible college men in Hanoi, Vietnam. This study will test the impact of the program on promoting prosocial bystander behavior and preventing sexual violence perpetration, through improvements in the seven knowledge, attitudinal, and emotional mediators over a seven month study period, with a baseline survey and two follow-up surveys.

Full description

Sexual violence is any sexual act committed against a person without freely given consent. Men and women may experience sexual violence, but most victims are women. Women's first experiences of sexual violence often occur in adolescence. In Asia and the Pacific, about 14% of sexually experienced adolescent girls report forced sexual debut. Thus, early prevention with men is critical; yet, young men often are difficult to reach and may resist programs that target sexual violence, not seeing themselves as potential perpetrators. Prevention with men that integrates a bystander framework, which treats men as "allies" of women, is one way to target attitudes and behaviors while decreasing resistance to participation. In this study, the researchers will adapt an existing program for use with men attending one of two universities in Hanoi, Vietnam. This study will test the impact of the adapted program on knowledge/attitudinal/emotional mediators, and in turn, on sexual violence perpetration and prosocial bystander behavior in this target group. The adapted program is a novel, six-session, web-based serial drama and educational program designed to prevent sexual violence perpetration and to enhance prosocial bystander behavior in young men. The program has reduced the incidence of sexual violence among men attending an urban, public university in the Southeastern United States.

After conducting interviews with men and women, and focus group discussions with college men and university stakeholders the researchers will produce a web-based adaptation of the RealConsent program in Vietnam. The researchers will then conduct a randomized controlled trial to test the impact of the adapted program, relative to a health-education control condition, on knowledge/attitudinal/emotional mediators, and in turn, on sexually violent behaviors, and prosocial bystander behavior in freshmen men attending two universities in Hanoi. This project will be the first to adapt and to test the impact of a novel, theoretically grounded, web-based intervention to prevent sexual violence perpetration and to promote prosocial bystander behavior among young men for use in a middle-income country. If this study shows that the adapted program is effective cross-culturally, it will have exceptional potential for scale-up to prevent men's perpetration of sexual violence against women globally.

Enrollment: 793 patients

Sex: Male

Ages: 18 to 24 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Identifying as heterosexual or bisexual
• Enrolled as a freshman at Hanoi Medical University or Thang Long University on 9/1/2019

Exclusion criteria

• None

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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793 participants in 2 patient groups

RealConsent

Experimental group

Description:

Participants randomized to this study arm will receive an adapted program of RealConsent.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Adapted RealConsent

Health Education Control Condition

Active Comparator group

Description:

Participants in the control arm will receive a web-based health promotion program.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Health Education Control Condition