title: Use of social media for sexual health promotion: a scoping review.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  In order to prevent sexually transmitted infections (STIs), the World Health Organization recommends educating people on sexual health. With more than 2 billion active users worldwide, online social media potentially represent powerful channels for health promotion, including sexual health.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To review the scientific literature on the use of online social media for sexual health promotion.
  
  
  METHODS
  A search was conducted of scientific and medical databases, and grey literature was also included. The selected publications were classified according to their study designs, sexual health promotion main subject, target audience age, and social media use.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Fifty-one publications were included; 4 publications presenting randomized intervention studies, 39 non-randomized intervention studies, and 8 observational studies. In 29 publications (56.9%), the main subject of the sexual health promotion was 'general' or to increase STI testing. Thirty publications (58.8%) specifically focused on youth or young people (aged 11-29 years). Fourteen publications that used social media either as unique channels for sexual health promotion interventions or as a tool supporting the sexual health promotion reported an effect on behavior (27%), and two of those studies found a reduction in the number of positive chlamydia and gonorrhea cases linked to social media intervention. Forty-four publications (86.3%) involved Facebook in some way.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Although billions of people worldwide actively use social media, we identified only 51 publications on the use of social media for promoting sexual health. About a quarter of the publications have identified promising results, and the evidence for positive effects of social media interventions for promoting sexual health is increasing. There is a need for more studies that explicitly discuss their theoretical framework, and that have strong research designs, in order to further increase the evidence base of the field.
authors.affiliation: Norwegian Centre for eHealth Research, University Hospital of North Norway, Tromsø, Norway.|Department of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway; elia.gabarron@telemed.no.
authors.forename: Elia
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Gabarron
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway.|Division of Mental Health and Addictions, University Hospital of North Norway, Tromsø, Norway.
authors.forename: Rolf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Wynn
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012725:Sexual Behavior; D000074384:Sexual Health; D012749:Sexually Transmitted Diseases / Q000517:prevention & control; D061108:Social Media; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: health education; health promotion; sexual health; sexually transmitted infections; social media; social networking sites