At San Diego Children’s Hospital, the rate of STI testing among high-risk adolescents increased nearly fivefold. According to Pediatrics, the number of infections detected as a result of this intervention doubled.
Since adolescents are prone to risky behavior, including risky sexual activity that can lead to infection, specialists at children’s hospital decided to test those admitted to the emergency department for gonorrhea and chlamydia. The main goal of this project is to detect infections early to stop their spread and subsequent complications.
Experts have identified three main categories of people who may be at risk:
- patients with genital complaints such as pain on urination, pain in the perineum or bleeding;
- girls with abdominal pain;
- patients with behavioural problems such as depression or suicidal thoughts.
All adolescents with the above-mentioned problems were automatically tested for sexually transmitted infections. The proportion of patients tested increased from 12% to 59% in 14 months. The number of people with positive test results increased from 1.8 to 3.4. Statistics showed more than 30% of diagnoses were for patients with behavioral health problems.
This study was also educational in nature, as it reminded adolescents that they need both information and tools to meet their reproductive health needs.