Women's experiences of Chlamydia screening. Qualitative interviews with women in primary care
Women's experiences of Chlamydia screening. Qualitative interviews with women in primary care
Background: plans are underway to introduce Chlamydia screening in UK primary care. The success of a screening programme depends upon many factors including its acceptability to the population being screened. The experiences of women who have taken part in a pilot study of screening are therefore important in ensuring that services are developed in such a way to maximise health benefits.
Objectives: to explore the experiences of Chlamydia screening among women with both positive and negative results and women who were still waiting for results; to reflect on the implications of their views for primary care based screening programmes.
Methods: interviews were carried out with twenty women who had participated in a pilot of opportunistic Chlamydia screening carried out in eight general practices in Edinburgh. Four participants had received a positive result, 14 had a negative result and two were still waiting for results. Qualitative analysis was carried out on interview transcripts using the framework approach.
Results: most women saw themselves as at low risk of Chlamydia in fection because: it was not perceived as a common infection (many had never heard of it before); they felt that their sexual history did not put them at risk; or because they had no symptoms (although Chlamydia is frequently asymptomatic). Women interviewed welcomed the offer of Chlamydia screening because of the importance of preventing infertility, the ease of testing, and the knowledge that the infection could easily be treated with antibiotics. However, women stressed that it was important to receive adequate information in order to make an informed choice about whether or not to accept the test.
Conclusions: the complexity of messages to be conveyed when offering a Chlamydia screening test, for instance regarding the symptomless nature of the infection and the implications of a positive result, mean that the time taken to communicate this adequately should not be underestimated
56-61
Santer, Miriam
3ce7e832-31eb-4d27-9876-3a1cd7f381dc
Wyke, Sally
ad68c72b-485d-48c4-b083-4eb59e09c79a
Warner, Pamela
4765f826-6e09-4838-bb0c-f1f2a9a33017
June 2003
Santer, Miriam
3ce7e832-31eb-4d27-9876-3a1cd7f381dc
Wyke, Sally
ad68c72b-485d-48c4-b083-4eb59e09c79a
Warner, Pamela
4765f826-6e09-4838-bb0c-f1f2a9a33017
Santer, Miriam, Wyke, Sally and Warner, Pamela
(2003)
Women's experiences of Chlamydia screening. Qualitative interviews with women in primary care.
European Journal of General Practice, 9 (2), .
(PMID:14611017)
Abstract
Background: plans are underway to introduce Chlamydia screening in UK primary care. The success of a screening programme depends upon many factors including its acceptability to the population being screened. The experiences of women who have taken part in a pilot study of screening are therefore important in ensuring that services are developed in such a way to maximise health benefits.
Objectives: to explore the experiences of Chlamydia screening among women with both positive and negative results and women who were still waiting for results; to reflect on the implications of their views for primary care based screening programmes.
Methods: interviews were carried out with twenty women who had participated in a pilot of opportunistic Chlamydia screening carried out in eight general practices in Edinburgh. Four participants had received a positive result, 14 had a negative result and two were still waiting for results. Qualitative analysis was carried out on interview transcripts using the framework approach.
Results: most women saw themselves as at low risk of Chlamydia in fection because: it was not perceived as a common infection (many had never heard of it before); they felt that their sexual history did not put them at risk; or because they had no symptoms (although Chlamydia is frequently asymptomatic). Women interviewed welcomed the offer of Chlamydia screening because of the importance of preventing infertility, the ease of testing, and the knowledge that the infection could easily be treated with antibiotics. However, women stressed that it was important to receive adequate information in order to make an informed choice about whether or not to accept the test.
Conclusions: the complexity of messages to be conveyed when offering a Chlamydia screening test, for instance regarding the symptomless nature of the infection and the implications of a positive result, mean that the time taken to communicate this adequately should not be underestimated
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Published date: June 2003
Organisations:
Primary Care & Population Sciences
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Local EPrints ID: 353439
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/353439
ISSN: 1381-4788
PURE UUID: bcd9038b-c777-4f66-becb-6455439486c7
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Date deposited: 06 Jun 2013 10:42
Last modified: 23 Jul 2022 02:00
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Contributors
Author:
Sally Wyke
Author:
Pamela Warner
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