Reductions in STD Infections Subsequent to an STD Clinic Visit

Abstract

Video-based patient education has been effective in a variety of clinical settings. The authors studied the efficacy of a video-based educational intervention in an inner-city public sexually transmitted diseases (STD) clinic. To evaluate the efficacy of video-based patient education in reducing STD infections subsequent to a clinic visit. African-American and Hispanic men attending a large public STD clinic were assigned at random to either an experimental video-based educational intervention or a control condition in which they received regular clinic services. Patients in the experimental group were exposed to video-based interventions that provided information about STDs and their prevention, portrayed positive attitudes about condom use, and modeled appropriate strategies for encouraging condom use in different sexual relationships. During 1992, 2,004 subjects were tracked for an average of 17 months through the New York City STD surveillance database for the occurrence of new STD infections. The overall rate of new infection among male STD clinic patients was 24.2%. Rate of new infection was significantly lower among those exposed to video-based prevention education than among controls (22.5% compared with 26.8%, p < .05). Subjects reporting multiple sex partners had a significantly higher new infection rate but also experienced the greatest impact of educational intervention. There was a 32.2% new infection rate among high-risk controls compared with a 24.8% rate among high-risk intervention groups (p < 0.025). Results of this randomized clinical trial indicate that using video-based patient education to supplement regular STD clinic services and provider interactions can be effective in reducing rates of new STD infection, particularly among those at greatest risk.