Priorities for a gender‐sensitive sexually transmitted infections and human immunodeficiency virus (STIs/HIV) services: An exploratory mixed methods study

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Providing gender‐sensitive health services is emphasized by the World Health Organization. This study aimed to assess and prioritize the needs for the gender‐sensitive sexually transmitted infections/human immunodeficiency viruses (STIs/HIV) prevention services by a valid and reliable questionnaire. METHODS: This was an exploratory mixed methods sequential study in Shiraz Iran 2019. The first phase was a qualitative study on 37 providers and managers of the services who were recruited using the purposive and then snowball sampling method. In the second phase, following the content analysis of the qualitative data and a review of related literature, a questionnaire was developed and its psychometric properties were evaluated. Then, in the third phase, the questionnaire was used to assess and prioritize the needs through a quantitative descriptive cross‐sectional study on all 290 providers of STI/HIV prevention services affiliated with Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. RESULTS: The finding of the qualitative phase showed gender‐sensitive STI/HIV prevention services should provide gender‐sensitive care and education by the trained personnel and manages with appropriate facilities and equipment. Providing these services also requires supportive policies, intersectoral cooperation, and community capacitation. In the second phase, a questionnaire was developed with 63 items. Assessment of psychometric properties of the questionnaire demonstrated the scale content validity index and ratio (S‐CVI = 0.98 and S‐CVR = 0.87, respectively), as well as the reliability of the questionnaire (internal consistency = 0.972 and intracluster correlation coefficient = 0.910). Results of the third descriptive phase of the study demonstrated the highest priorities for gender‐sensitive education (92.01 ± 11.76%) and care services (92.11 ± 12.04%), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: To improve the quality of the services, a gender‐based education and care process, as well as a gender‐sensitive structure, including gender‐sensitive personnel, facilities, and management are necessary. Recognizing and meeting the needs for gender‐sensitive services will improve the quality of the services.