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STI symptoms include:
- Vaginal or penile discharge, painful urination,
abdominal pain, or genital sores
Risk factors include:
- Number of sexual partners
- Client’s age
- Recent new partner
- Previous STI infection
- Partner has other partners or STI symptoms
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Many youth do not know if they are at risk for STIs. Various
techniques have been developed to help youth and others determine
if they are at increased risk. Especially helpful are individual
or group counseling sessions. Young men and women may feel more
comfortable when they are in groups of the same sex. Counselors
can discuss the symptoms of STIs, which include vaginal or penile
discharge, painful urination, abdominal pain or genital sores.
Many women regard most vaginal discharge to be normal and do
not realize that some discharge may be a sign of infection that
needs treatment. Hence, women need to be educated on the differences
in normal and abnormal vaginal discharge.
Counselors can also point out factors that put young people
at high risk for STIs. These risk factors include the number
of sexual partners, age, whether he or she has had a new partner
in recent months, history of previous STI infection, whether
their partner has other sexual partners, or whether their partner
has STI symptoms. It is difficult for many women to know if
they are at risk because they do not know whether their husband
or boyfriend has multiple partners. The behavior of male partners
may be the greatest risk factor for women. Current research
is exploring whether such risk factors can be formalized into
a checklist of questions on demographic, behavioral and related
factors, called a risk assessment tool, and whether use of this
tool can help to manage contraceptive choices and STI diagnosis
and treatment.
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