General practitioners' use of internet-based patient materials for partner notification.
OBJECTIVE
To determine if general practitioners (GPs) would use chlamydia resources for partner notification (PN) when the address to a website was printed on positive results.


METHODS
Two surveys (pre-/postintervention) were sent to GPs before half were exposed to the website address on positive chlamydia results.


RESULTS
Of 499 eligible GPs, 233 (48%) returned completed preintervention surveys and 173 of 233 GPs (78%) returned postintervention surveys. Partner letters increased from 13% (10/78) to 36% (28/78) (P = 0.0009) and brochures from 33% (26/78) to 54% (42/78) (P = 0.003) among those exposed to the website. There was no significant change among GPs not exposed to the website. GPs who reported practicing PN all of the time did not change but was greater than 93% in all groups.


CONCLUSIONS
When a website was provided with useful documents on it, GPs were more likely to provide resources for clients to pass onto partners.
Tomnay
Jane E
JE
Department of Public Health, Univeristy of Melbourne, Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, Victoria, Australia. jtomnay@mshc.org.au
Pitts
Marian K
MK
Fairley
Christopher K
CK
D022126:Access to Information; D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002690:Chlamydia Infections / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D016358:Contact Tracing; D015709:Correspondence as Topic; D005194:Family Practice / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D005568:Forms and Records Control; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D007753:Laboratories; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians' / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013664:Teaching Materials; D014739:Victoria / Q000453:epidemiology