Education to increase sexual health screening

Rates of sexually transmitted infections among young people aged 16-24 years have soared in recent years. Opportunistic screening for chlamydia and other STIs identifies asymptomatic infection but encouraging this group to take up screening remains a major challenge. National guidance recommends structured one-to-one discussions with young people to achieve behavioural change. Although opportunities for this are rare, the sexual health outreach team in Nottingham has developed an interactive educational module for use with groups of young people and combined it with sexual health screening, with initial positive results.