Willingness of young men and women to be tested for <i>Chlamydia trachomatis</i> in three non-medical settings in Glasgow, UK

Objective To assess the willingness of young men and women to be tested for Chlamydia trachomatis in three non-medical settings. Methods Men and women aged between 16 and 24 years were invited to complete a self-administered questionnaire and provide a urine sample in non-medical settings: ‘education’ (one further education college), ‘health and fitness’ (three local authority leisure centres) and ‘workplace’ (two call centres). Results Eighty-four percent of age-eligible users approached in the settings agreed to complete a questionnaire (n = 363). Among the sexually active people (n = 346), the uptake of screening varied by setting [education 19.1% (22/115), health and fitness 48.8% (62/127), workplace 27.8% (29/104); p<0.001]. Health and fitness settings (OR 4.08; 95% CI 2.04–8.14) and perception of being at risk of having chlamydia (OR 2.47; 21 ©FSRH J Fam Plann Reprod Health Care 2009: 35(1) Introduction Chlamydia trachomatis is the most common bacterial sexually transmitted infection (STI) in the UK, and in Scotland there was an increase of 27% and 87%, for female and male diagnoses, respectively, between 2002 and 2007.1 The highest incidence rates are among young people aged under 25 years.1 To date, chlamydia screening in the UK has largely been offered to women under 25 years attending clinical settings. Given that the majority of people with chlamydia infection will have no physical cue with which to seek health care, and few young people use specialist sexual health services, many people will not be reached by cliniccontrol efforts. Despite this, at the end of the first year of the National Chlamydia Screening Programme (NCSP) (England) only 5.4% of tests were conducted in non-clinical settings, such as school, further education and military settings.2 Postal testing kits have been made available in selected high street pharmacies (Boots) in England as part of a 2-year pilot3 and so England is witnessing an expansion in screening beyond traditional clinical sites to non-clinical venues. There is increasing interest in going ‘beyond the clinic’ if inroads are to be made to combating current levels of chlamydia infection in the population. More generally, non-clinical settings such as further education,4 health and Willingness of young men and women to be tested for Chlamydia trachomatis in three non-medical settings in Glasgow, UK Karen Lorimer, Margaret E Reid, Graham J Hart ARTICLE MRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK Karen Lorimer, BA, PhD, Research Associate University of Glasgow, Public Health and Health Policy,