General practitioners' use of internet-based patient materials for partner notification

To determine if general practitioners (GPs) would use chlamydia resources for partner notification (PN) when the address to a website was printed on positive results.

Two surveys (pre-/postintervention) were sent to GPs before half were exposed to the website address on positive chlamydia results.

Of 499 eligible GPs, 233 (48%) returned completed preintervention surveys and 173 of 233 GPs (78%) returned postintervention surveys. Partner letters increased from 13% (10/78) to 36% (28/78) (P = 0.0009) and brochures from 33% (26/78) to 54% (42/78) (P = 0.003) among those exposed to the website. There was no significant change among GPs not exposed to the website. GPs who reported practicing PN all of the time did not change but was greater than 93% in all groups.

When a website was provided with useful documents on it, GPs were more likely to provide resources for clients to pass onto partners.