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Review: partner notification interventions can reduce sexually transmitted infections

Clinical impact ratings GP/FP/Primary care Infectious disease Gynaecology Public health

Key Words: contact tracing • sexual partners • sexually transmitted diseases • truth disclosure

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

METHODS
Data sources: Medline, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, PsycINFO, Sigle, and DARE (all from 1990 to 2005); 2 electronic research registers (International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number Register and clinicaltrials.gov); and reference lists.

Study selection and assessment: randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that compared patient referral alone with simple referral plus additional partner notification interventions, including patient-delivered partner therapy (PDPT) (ie, patients were given drugs or a prescription for their partners) in patients with STIs. Patient referral involved index patients informing their sexual partners about the infection and advising them to seek treatment, with or without clinic contact cards. 14 RCTs (n = 12 389; STIs included gonorrhoea, chlamydia, non-gonococcal urethritis, trichomoniasis, or an STI syndrome) evaluating 16 interventions met the selection criteria. Quality assessment of individual studies was based on randomisation, allocation concealment, fully defining outcomes, blinding outcome assessors, minimising cointerventions, reporting dropouts and withdrawals, and performing an intention-to-treat analysis.

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Stephen A Wilson, MD, MPH

University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre,
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA