Home Sampling Versus Conventional Sampling for Screening of Urogenital Chlamydia Trachomatis in Young Men and Women.

Overview

Urogenital Chlamydia trachomatis infection is the most common bacterial sexually transmitted infection in Norway. Urogential C.trachomatis infection can easily be treated with antibiotics. However, left untreated it is a major cause of pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) that can lead to complications such as infertility, ectopic pregnancy and chronic pelvic pain in women. Most infections are asymptomatic and many do not seek the doctor for testing. Therefore cases remain undetected and untreated.We want to determine the efficacy and feasibility of screening for urogenital C. trachomatis infection with home sampling (intervention) compared to the current strategy of conventional sampling at the doctor's office (control) in identifying men and women aged 18-25 years with urogenital C.trachomatis infection (Part A). We also want to identify factors influencing the acceptability of home sampling for C.trachomatis infections (Part B)and determine factors associated with C.trachomatis infections (Part C).

Study design The different objectives will be addressed through a complex design with several sub-studies. Part A is a randomised control trial where we compare the intervention group who will be offered home-sampling and recieve a package by mail (containing information on urogenital C.trachomatis infections, sampling eqiupment for urine tests and a questionnaire) with a control group who will continue with todays system of conventional sampling at the doctores office (no intervention). The study population are all men and women between 18-25 years of age in Rogaland County in Norway. The population register will be used to randomly assigne to either the intervention group or the control group.The intervention group will be asked to take a urine sample and send this by mail to the laboratory for analysis within three months after the invitation, and to fill out and return a questionnaire. For the ones in the control group all samples(urethral or cervical swabs or urine samples)taken within the same three months will be sendt to the same laboratory. In this part of the study we will measure the yield ratio for the tested, diagnosed and treated in the two groupsafter the study period of three months. All samples either obtained at home or at the physician's office, will be analyzed by BDProbeTec ET Chlamydia Amplified DNA assay. This is a well documented Nucleid Acid amplification method. Samples will be analysed according to manufactures instructions. Data on number of tested and diagnosed in the two groups will be collected from Stvanger University Hospital. Data on number of treated will be collected from the Norwegain Prescription Database by merging the study dataset with their datafiles. This way we will recive information on who has received treatment for C.rachomatis within one month after after a positive C.trachomatis test. In Part B a case-cohort from the intervention group (Part A) consisting of a random selection of respondents and non-respondents will be used to determine the feasibility of home sampling as a screening strategy by measuring the risk (OR) related to different factors that determined response. Data are collected through selfadminitered questionnaires. Part C is a cross sectional study consisting of all respondents in the intervention group. In this part we will measure Prevalence Ratio(PR) of urogential C.trachomatis infections associated with different factors by comparing C.trachomatis positive and C.trachomatis negative in the intervention group. Part D is an economic study which will be addressed in a separate protocol.