Presentation delivered by Eva Kaltenthaler at HTAi 2014 in Washington D.C. co-authors Abdullah Pandor and Ruth Wong

1. Challengesto thesystematic review of
sexual health interventionsfor people
with severemental illness
Dr Eva Kaltenthaler
Reader in Health Technology Assessment
ScHARR, University of Sheffield
Co-authors: Abdullah Pandor, Ruth Wong
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Outlineof presentation
• Background
• Issues we encountered
• Some suggestions for future research

3. Background
• People with severe mental illness may be
more likely to engage in high risk sexual
behaviour
• At risk of worse sexual health outcomes
than the general population
• Rapid systematic review
• Transferability of evidence to the UK
setting
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Background
Headlineresults
•13 RCTs studies
•People with mental
illness
•All trials in USA
•Insufficient evidence to
support or reject
interventions
•More details in
Abdullah’s presentation

5. Theissues

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Population

7. Interventions
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• Wide range of interventions:
 HIV prevention and risk reduction
 Sexual assertiveness
 Cognitive behavioural skill building
 Social skills intervention
• Little detail was provided in the studies regarding
the content of interventions, how they were
delivered and by whom

8. Comparators
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9. Outcomes
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10. Other important issues
• UK care pathway likely to be very different
from that in the USA
• Some of the studies were quite old-how do
we combine data from studies from
different time periods?
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11. What can bedone
differently?

12. Reporting of studies
• More details regarding intervention
components and delivery
• Patient characteristics including diagnosis,
co-morbidities etc.
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13. Sometrial recommendations
• Patient selection criteria clearly defined
• Clear descriptions of interventions and
comparators
• Reliable and valid outcomes with
alternatives to self-reported outcomes
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14. Reviewing suggestions
• Contact authors for more study details
• Consider other approaches to reviewing
such as realist synthesis
• Incorporate other study designs apart from
RCTs
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15. Summary
• Results make it difficult to generalise
these findings to the UK setting
• These suggestions may help to ensure
that further trials provide more useful
information
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Funding Acknowledgement:
This project was funded by the National Institute
for Health Research HTA (project number
12/74/01)
Department of Health Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed therein are
those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect
those of the HTA, NIHR, NHS or the Department
of Health.

17. Reference
Kaltenthaler E, Pandor A, Wong R. The
effectiveness of sexual health interventions
for people with severe mental illness: a
systematic review. Health Technol Assess
2014;18(1)
http://www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/hta/volu
me-18/issue-1
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Thank you!
Email: ekaltenthaler@sheffield.ac.uk
Twitter: @evakaltenthaler
Booth 7