Pharmacy-Based Testing for Chlamydia Effective

HealthDay News — It is feasible to sell chlamydia test kits through pharmacies and use existing health infrastructure to follow up on results and manage clients, according to a pilot study published in the Journal of Pharmacy Practice and Research.

Joseph Debattista, PhD, from the Metro North Hospital & Health Service in Brisbane, Australia, and colleagues assessed postal specimen kits for chlamydia testing. Kits were sold at a minimal price at 18 community pharmacies. Samples, collected via UriSwab, were mailed to a centralized service for processing, and results were returned directly to clients.

The researchers found that over a 9-month period, 32.7% of 333 available test kits were sold. Of the 109 sold tests, 43 specimens were returned for processing. Of the returned samples, 7 produced reactive results, 34 produced non-reactive results, and one was invalid.

“Despite a low specimen return rate (12.9% of total kits available; 39.4% of kits sold), a high reactivity rate (16.3%) for chlamydia was identified among those persons purchasing a kit and returning a sample, suggesting that the pharmacy program had been effectively targeted,” the authors write.

Reference

Debattista J, Hayes M, Marshall P, Pouchkareff N, Gordon R, Priddle A. A trial of pharmacy-based testing for Chlamydia trachomatis using postal specimen kits [published online December 23, 2016]. J Pharm Pract Res. doi: 10.1002/jppr.1221