Retesting for Repeat Chlamydial Infection: Family Planning Provider Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices

Abstract

Emphasizing the importance of retesting to providers through adoption of clinic policies will likely be an important component of a multimodal strategy to ensure that patients are retested and that provider/clinic staff take advantage of opportunities to retest patients. Innovative approaches such as home-based retesting with self-collected vaginal swabs and use of cost-effective technologies to generate patient reminders should also be considered.

Moving Toward Chlamydia Control in the United States

“…In this issue of the Journal of Women's Health, Park et al 5 move a step further down the continuum of services and begin to tackle interventions for increasing retesting for people treated for chlamydial infection. In a survey of family planning providers, Park et al explore attitudes and barriers toward retesting and inquire about strategies used to ensure retesting.…”

“…As we examine the interventions assessed by Park et al 5 in the framework of prevention impact, the major issues are retesting intervention coverage and intervention efficacy. The role of the population eligible for retesting in overall morbidity is less open to question, predicated as it is on 100% prevalence by definition.…”

“…What goes into the menu should be informed by which interventions have evidence of efficacy or effectiveness-aligned with prospective health reform requirements as well as good sense. The direct data of Park et al 5 speak to a sort of metaintervention in that they found that clinic retesting policies influence at least the use of retesting interventions by almost a fourfold factor. Park et al also discussed interventions in three areas: (1) interventions to increase the proportion of persons who are tested if they appear in the clinic, (2) interventions to increase the proportion of people who actually return, and (3) alternatives to returning that still yield retesting data.…”

Chlamydia trachomatis infection: a challenge for the urologist

“…4 Ct infection could remain asymptomatic in about 70% of cases. [5][6] Ct infection long-term effects include ectopic pregnancy and tubal inflammation with subsequent infertility. [6][7] Absence of symptoms increases the risk of infecting sexual partners and may cause long-term complications in men too, such as poor quality of semen and infertility.…”

“…[5][6] Ct infection long-term effects include ectopic pregnancy and tubal inflammation with subsequent infertility. [6][7] Absence of symptoms increases the risk of infecting sexual partners and may cause long-term complications in men too, such as poor quality of semen and infertility. 5,7 Several factors contribute to make difficult detecting Ct by a conventional analysis.…”