Faculty of Health Sciences
School of Family Medicine
0335022
asmartc@yahoo.co.uk / The epidemic of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs), including HIV infection, is one
of the major challenges facing South Africa at the present time.
Controlling the epidemic of conventional STIs will decrease the suffering and
complications caused by these diseases as well as the spread of HIV/AIDS.
In order to manage patients in an efficient and cost-effective way, the WHO has
advocated syndromic management. This approach is characterised by the management of
persons with STIs by providing treatment for a group of diseases, which may cause one or
more signs or symptoms, rather than by treating a specific disease.
The incidence of STIs is very high in South Africa and many patients with STIs are
consulting private general practitioners but very little information is available on
syndromic management in general practice.
To this view, sexually transmitted diseases tally sheets were given to twenty self selected
private general practitioners and were requested to complete sheets for all STI and non-
STI patients for a period of eight weeks. Also a demographics questionnaire with regard
to the doctors and their practices was given to the doctors for completion. The data was
captured and analysed using the Microsoft Access and the EpiInfo 6 statistical package
5
The results indicated that although private general practitioners manage a fair number of
STI patients, not all are familiar with syndromic management. While recognising that the
respondents were self-selected, 19 (95%) of the 20 participating doctors were very keen
to attend courses on syndromic management.
It is recommended that more information be made available to general practitioners on
syndromic management.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/1618 |
| Date | 10 November 2006 |
| Creators | Soni, Samad Abdul |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 10540 bytes, 10131 bytes, 16351 bytes, 12019 bytes, 241153 bytes, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf |
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