UC Irvine

Improving Chlamydia Treatment in Adolescent Partnersby Ashley Renee Plummer Doctor of Nursing Practice University of California, Irvine, 2021

Untreated or recurrent sexually transmitted infections (STIs) cause considerable long-term morbidity, including chronic pelvic pain, ectopic pregnancy and infertility. Successful partner notification and proper treatment for STIs is essential to prevent reinfection and curtail further transmission. The practice of expedited partner therapy (EPT), which allows a clinician to treat an infected partner without a medical exam or history, can improve treatment rate among the partners of adolescents with STIs. The purpose of this quality improvement project at a Title X-supported family planning clinic was to implement a new program utilizing EPT. Without a health assessment or physical examination, the partners of adolescents with a diagnosis of chlamydia were treated with a single dose of Azithromycin, 1gram, if the patients expressed the need for treatment of their partner. The patient’s preferred method of receiving the treatment was utilized with one of the two new implementations: the ability to mail treatment to both the patient and their partner, or allowing the patient to pick up treatment for their partner when they picked up theirs at the study site. All these options were free of cost to the patients due to a grant received by the study site in March 2020. The patients then received a follow up phone call two weeks after treatment was provided to confirm compliance for both them and their partner, and to discuss after care if necessary. The phone call was a uniform questionnaire that was used by all investigators participating in this project. The feasibility of this program was evaluated in April, 2020, using data from June 1, 2019 to December 31, 2019 to ensure a similar time span for comparison. The primary unexpected variable that played a role in this project was the onset of the COVID 19 pandemic in March of 2020. Numerous attempts were made to address this in order to keep the project in a controlled setting, and are noted throughout this manuscript.