Home-based chlamydia testing of young people attending a music festival - who will pee and post?

BMC Public Health

Research Article

Rachel Sacks-Davis¹  Margaret E Hellard²  Judy Gold²  Campbell K Aitken² 

[1] Burnet Institute, Melbourne, VIC, Australia;Burnet Institute, Melbourne, VIC, Australia;Department of Epidemiology and Preventative Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia;

关键词: Sexual Health;    Sexual Risk Behaviour;    Inconsistent Condom;    Hazardous Drinking;    Vaginal Swab;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2458-10-376

 received in 2010-03-28, accepted in 2010-06-28,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundChlamydia is most common among young people, but only a small proportion of Australian young people are tested annually. Home-based chlamydia testing has been piloted in several countries to increase testing rates, but uptake has been low. We aimed to identify predictors of uptake of home-based chlamydia testing to inform future testing programs.MethodsWe offered home-based chlamydia testing kits to participants in a sexual behaviour cross-sectional survey conducted at a music festival in Melbourne, Australia. Those who consented received a testing kit and were asked to return their urine or vaginal swab sample via post.ResultsNine hundred and two sexually active music festival attendees aged 16-29 completed the survey; 313 (35%) opted to receive chlamydia testing kits, and 67 of 313 (21%) returned a specimen for testing. One participant was infected with chlamydia (1% prevalence). Independent predictors of consenting to receive a testing kit included older age, knowing that chlamydia can make women infertile, reporting more than three lifetime sexual partners and inconsistent condom use. Independent predictors of returning a sample to the laboratory included knowing that chlamydia can be asymptomatic, not having had an STI test in the past six months and not living with parents.ConclusionsA low proportion of participants returned their chlamydia test, suggesting that this model is not ideal for reaching young people. Home-based chlamydia testing is most attractive to those who report engaging in sexual risk behaviours and are aware of the often asymptomatic nature and potential sequelae of chlamydia infection.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Sacks-Davis et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.