Acceptability and feasibility of recruiting women to collect a self-administered vaginal swab at a pharmacy clinic for sexually transmissible infection screening
C. A. Gaydos
A C , M. Barnes A , J. Holden A , B. Silver A , R. Smith A , J. Hardick A and T. C. Quinn A B
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, 211 Preclinical Teaching Building, Fisher Center, 725 North Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.
B Division of Intramural Research, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, 9000 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
C Corresponding author. Email: cgaydos@jhmi.edu
Sexual Health 17(4) 392-394 https://doi.org/10.1071/SH20077
Submitted: 1 May 2020 Accepted: 26 June 2020 Published: 24 August 2020
Abstract
Willingness to self-collect vaginal swabs at a pharmacy clinic is of interest as a venue to increase sexually transmissible infections (STIs) screening for chlamydia, gonorrhoea and trichomonas. Women self-collected vaginal swabs at the pharmacy, completed questionnaires and received STI results within 2 h. Women with STIs were offered free treatment. A total of 313 of 777 (40.3%) women consented and prevalence for any STI was 3.9%. Questionnaires demonstrated acceptability for self-collection at the pharmacy, with 63% (95% CI 57.3–68) and 32.3% (95% CI 27.4–37.8) indicating they ‘strongly agreed’ or ‘agreed’ that they felt comfortable with pharmacy collection, respectively. Self-collected vaginal swabs for STI testing for women who were at a pharmacy were feasible and acceptable to women.
Additional keywords: chlamydia, gonorrhoea, home collection, pharmacy collection, point-of-care tests, self-administered swabs, self-sampling, trichomonas.
References
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