Effect of a brief video intervention on incident infection among patients attending sexually transmitted disease clinics.

• Main Authors: Lee Warner, Jeffrey D Klausner, Cornelis A Rietmeijer, C Kevin Malotte, Lydia O'Donnell, Andrew D Margolis, Gregory L Greenwood, Doug Richardson, Shelley Vrungos, Carl R O'Donnell, Craig B Borkowf, Safe in the City Study Group
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2008-06-01
• Series: PLoS Medicine
• Online Access: http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC2504047?pdf=render
• ISSN: 1549-1277; 1549-1676

Sexually transmitted disease (STD) prevention remains a public health priority. Simple, practical interventions to reduce STD incidence that can be easily and inexpensively administered in high-volume clinical settings are needed. We evaluated whether a brief video, which contained STD prevention messages targeted to all patients in the waiting room, reduced acquisition of new infections after that clinic visit.In a controlled trial among patients attending three publicly funded STD clinics (one in each of three US cities) from December 2003 to August 2005, all patients (n = 38,635) were systematically assigned to either a theory-based 23-min video depicting couples overcoming barriers to safer sexual behaviors, or the standard waiting room environment. Condition assignment alternated every 4 wk and was determined by which condition (intervention or control) was in place in the clinic waiting room during the patient's first visit within the study period. An intent-to-treat analysis was used to compare STD incidence between intervention and control patients. The primary endpoint was time to diagnosis of incident laboratory-confirmed infections (gonorrhea, chlamydia, trichomoniasis, syphilis, and HIV), as identified through review of medical records and county STD surveillance registries. During 14.8 mo (average) of follow-up, 2,042 patients (5.3%) were diagnosed with incident STD (4.9%, intervention condition; 5.7%, control condition). In survival analysis, patients assigned to the intervention condition had significantly fewer STDs compared with the control condition (hazard ratio [HR], 0.91; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.84 to 0.99).Showing a brief video in STD clinic waiting rooms reduced new infections nearly 10% overall in three clinics. This simple, low-intensity intervention may be appropriate for adoption by clinics that serve similar patient populations.http://www.ClinicalTrials.gov (#NCT00137670).