Developing regional surveillance of sexually transmitted infection: a survey of the views of healthcare professionals in north west England.
Current surveillance of sexually transmitted infections in England and Wales relies on aggregated data collected by genitourinary medicine clinics. This system only allows limited analysis especially at a local level. A change to a disaggregate form of data collection could provide additional outputs at a local level. We undertook a survey of the views of those working in the prevention and control of sexually transmitted infections in the North West to determine what additional surveillance outputs would facilitate their work. Of respondents, 89% believed surveillance should deliver between four and nine types of analyses that can only be delivered by a surveillance system that is based on disaggregate data. Respondents indicated that it was acceptable for clinics to provide the data items required but that currently it was not feasible to do so because of workload constraints.
McKelvey
D
D
Borchardt Medical Centre, Manchester.
Regan
M
M
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods*; D004739:England / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods*; D012749:Sexually Transmitted Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires