Background:

The partner notification is one of the main activities of epidemiological surveillance in Public Health. The primary objective was to estimate the compliance of the partner notification by health professionals who reported sexually transmitted diseases (HIV, Gonorrhoea, Syphilis and Chlamydia) during 2017 in Lleida’s regions.

Methods:

We carried out a descriptive epidemiological study of prevalence about the compliance of partner notification. Data collection was done by epidemiological surveys of these notifiable diseases and additional information was recovered through medical record and interview with professionals. The factors associated with the lack of partner notification were studied through the odds ratio (OR) and its 95% confidence interval (CI). ORs were adjusted (ORa) with multivariate logistic regression models.

Results:

We studied 203 STD cases with an average age of 30.6 years (SD=11.1); 32.5% were women. There was 46.3% without partner notification. The main cause of this absence was the lack of patient cooperation (23.4%). The variables associated with the lack of partner notification were the male sex (aOR-3.5; CI95%=1.6-7.5), gonococcal infection (aOR-4.9; CI95%=1.2-19.8), chlamydia infection (aOR-3.9; CI95%=0.9-16.1) and homosexual/bisexual sexual orientation (aOR-2.2; CI95%=0.9-5.4).

Conclusions:

Compliance of partner notification is low and it is related to male sex, sexual orientation (homosexual/bisexual/transsexual) and type of infection (Gonorrhoea and Chlamydia). Reducing the social stigma associated with sexual orientation and improving the information of health professionals could favour the contact studies.

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