Partner notification.
BACKGROUND
Many people diagnosed with sexually transmitted disease do not have symptoms, and may not inform their past or current sexual partners of their diagnosis, or routinely use condoms. Several strategies have been used to notify and treat partners of people diagnosed with sexually transmitted diseases, but only a limited number of RCTs of their effectiveness have been undertaken.


METHODS
We conducted a systematic review and aimed to answer the following clinical questions: What are the effects of different partner notification strategies in people with different sexually transmitted diseases? What can be done to improve the effectiveness of patient referral? We searched: Medline, Embase, The Cochrane Library and other important databases up to April 2006 (Clinical Evidence reviews are updated periodically, please check our website for the most up-to-date version of this review). We included harms alerts from relevant organisations such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).


RESULTS
We found seven systematic reviews, RCTs, or observational studies that met our inclusion criteria. We performed a GRADE evaluation of the quality of evidence for interventions.


CONCLUSIONS
In this systematic review we present information relating to the effectiveness and safety of the following interventions: contract referral, educational videos, information pamphlets, outreach assistance, patient referral, patient referral via different types of healthcare professionals, provider referral, telephone reminders, and contact cards.
Mathews
Catherine
C
Health Systems Research Unit, South African Medical Research Council, School of Public Health and Family Medicine, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.
Coetzee
Nicol
N
D016358:Contact Tracing; D014481:United States; D014486:United States Food and Drug Administration