ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Evaluation of a video based health education strategy to improve sexually transmitted disease partner notification in South Africa

C Mathews¹, S J Guttmacher², N Coetzee³, S Magwaza³, J Stein⁴, C Lombard⁵, S Goldstein⁶ and D Coetzee⁷

¹ Health Systems Unit, South African Medical Research Council and Department of Public Health, University of Cape Town, South Africa
² Department of Health Studies, New York University, USA
³ Department of Public Health, University of Cape Town, South Africa
⁴ Centre for Health Policy, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
⁵ Biostatistics Unit, South African Medical Research Council, South Africa
⁶ Soul City, Institute of Urban Primary Health Care at Alexandra Health Centre and University Clinic, South Africa
⁷ Health Systems Trust, South Africa

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Catherine Mathews, Medical Research Council, PO Box 19070, Tygerberg, 7505, South Africa;
cmathews{at}mrc.ac.za

Objectives: To evaluate the feasibility and impact of a health education intervention promoting partner notification for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

Methods: The research setting was a busy public health clinic in a rural district in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. A before/after quantitative study design was used to measure the effect of an audiovisual presentation of a compelling love drama, posters, and pamphlets. Measures collected from all consenting STD index patients during a 6 week pre-intervention (control) phase were compared with those collected during a 6 week intervention phase. A qualitative evaluation assessed whether the intervention accurately portrayed the intended educational messages.

Results: 150 index patients (55% female) were interviewed in the control phase and 185 index patients (64% female) in the intervention phase. The intervention phase showed improvements on several measures of self efficacy about notifying casual partners, such as a belief among index patients that a greater proportion of their casual partners would see the importance of seeking treatment as a result of their notification interaction. The rate of contact cards returned per index patient was 0.27 in the intervention phase, compared with 0.20 in the control phase (95% CI for the rate difference: -0.05, 0.17). The qualitative research found that the intervention was thoroughly enjoyed by patients and clinicians, but a fundamental problem with it was that patients received confused messages about the relation between HIV/AIDS and other STDs. This has potentially negative consequences for partner notification.

Conclusion: The intervention needs further development, and then could provide a highly acceptable, cost effective model for health education in clinics in developing countries.

Keywords: sexually transmitted diseases; partner notification; health education; HIV prevention; intervention study; South Africa

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?