TY - JOUR
T1 - A plea for more research on access to sexual health services
AU - Fairley, Christopher K.
AU - Williams, Hennie
AU - Lee, David M.
AU - Cummings, Rosey
PY - 2007/2/1
Y1 - 2007/2/1
N2 - Access to sexual health services, by those at highest risk of sexually transmitted infections (STI) is critical to effective STI control. Access to services is determined by the systems that clinics use to prioritize clients. However, despite there being thousands of sexual health services world wide, only three published studies in the last 25 years have specifically assessed changes in the process of access to STI clinics in which a control period was used. These studies indicate that appointments booked in advance provide the least access for higher risk clients, whereas both triage systems and systems with a significant proportion of same day appointments improve access. It is likely, however, that many services have changed their practices and evaluation of these changes could provide valuable data to improve the efficiency and hence improve STI control.
AB - Access to sexual health services, by those at highest risk of sexually transmitted infections (STI) is critical to effective STI control. Access to services is determined by the systems that clinics use to prioritize clients. However, despite there being thousands of sexual health services world wide, only three published studies in the last 25 years have specifically assessed changes in the process of access to STI clinics in which a control period was used. These studies indicate that appointments booked in advance provide the least access for higher risk clients, whereas both triage systems and systems with a significant proportion of same day appointments improve access. It is likely, however, that many services have changed their practices and evaluation of these changes could provide valuable data to improve the efficiency and hence improve STI control.
KW - Sexual health clinics
KW - Sexually transmitted infections
KW - Triage
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=33847211369&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1258/095646207779949565
DO - 10.1258/095646207779949565
M3 - Review Article
C2 - 17331274
AN - SCOPUS:33847211369
VL - 18
SP - 75
EP - 76
JO - International Journal of STD and AIDS
JF - International Journal of STD and AIDS
SN - 0956-4624
IS - 2
ER -