Abstract

We report on the qualitative phase of a research that seeks to design a digital intervention for the prevention of STI / HIV and promotion of sexual health in university students. From focus groups, the experience and perception that university students have on sexuality, risk and prevention campaigns were addressed. Semi-structured interviews are conducted with key informants. The results reveal that sex education is scarce, reduced to the biological, loaded with prejudices and gender biases, limiting the handling of information by the student population. Wavering prevention strategies are evident, failing to motivate or offer opportunities for making conscious and autonomous decisions in sexual health. The STI / HIV campaigns were evaluated as not very inclusive, remote and based on fear. Interventions in sexual health have failed to weigh experiential aspects of youth sexuality, based on models of ideal and stereotyped behavior, discarding first-person narratives and their rich complexity. It is imperative to innovate in the prevention of STIs / HIV, formulating interventions based on an integrative, multidisciplinary and situated design that values the theory and experience of the target populations.