Psychiatric health in a sexually transmitted infections clinic: effect on reattendance.
OBJECTIVE
Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) remain a public health priority, but associated psychological morbidity has recently been ignored. One aspect of STI control is test of cure and further treatment at follow-up clinic appointments. We chose reattendance rates as a measure of compliance and assessed whether reattendance was related to psychological morbidity.


METHODS
938 STI clinic patients were offered the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HAD) and staff rated each patient's psychological health. Predictors of attendance, caseness and staff recognition were assessed by logistic regression.


RESULTS
401/774 [51.9%; 95% confidence interval (CI): 48.3-55.4%] patients, who completed the HAD, scored above threshold. Staff rated 151/743 (20.4%) patients as having "psychological problems." HAD caseness was not associated with attending arranged follow-up [adjusted odds ratio (adj. OR): 0.83 (0.49-2.05)]. Patients rated with psychological problems by staff were more likely to attend [adj. OR: 1.91 (1.02-3.60)].


CONCLUSIONS
Half of our sample had significant anxiety and staff should be more aware of this suffering. Our work suggests that such awareness might improve subsequent attendance.
Osborn
David P J
DP
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences, Royal Free Campus, Royal Free and University College Medical School, Rowland Hill Street, London NW3 2PF, UK. dosborn@rfc.ucl.ac.uk
King
M B
MB
Weir
M
M
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000553:Ambulatory Care; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008603:Mental Health; D008875:Middle Aged; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000523:psychology*; D010349:Patient Compliance / Q000523:psychology; D012749:Sexually Transmitted Diseases / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy