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Pharmacists' Knowledge and Practices Surrounding Expedited Partner Therapy for Chlamydia trachomatis, New York City,
Amanda Reid1, Meighan E Rogers, Vibhuti Arya
1From the *Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University; †Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Bureau of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control; ‡Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Bureau of STD Prevention and Control; §Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Bureau of Policy, Community Resilience & Response, New York, NY; and ¶Division of STD Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA.
Background:
Health care providers in New York City can prescribe treatment for Chlamydia trachomatis (Ct) for a patient's partner without the partner having a medical evaluation ("prescription-expedited partner therapy" [EPT]), and use of prescription-EPT is common. However, there is little known about pharmacists' knowledge and practices surrounding EPT.
Methods:
Two cross-sectional surveys, in 2012 and 2014, were conducted with representative samples of supervising pharmacists in NYC neighborhoods with high rates of Ct infection.
Results:
In both survey years, the majority of pharmacists who agreed to participate returned a survey (2012: 81% [83/103], 2014: 61% [106/173]), and pharmacist and pharmacy characteristics were similar across the 2 surveys. Pharmacists' EPT-related knowledge and practice was generally low, with little change between 2012 and 2014. In both years, fewer than half of pharmacists knew EPT was legal (2012, 46%; 2014, 42%). There were even decreases in specific content knowledge; in 2014, significantly fewer of the pharmacists who knew EPT was legal, knew that the initials "EPT" must be written in the body of the prescription (2012: 58%; 2014: 36%, P < 0.05). Most pharmacists in both survey years reported they had never received an EPT prescription, and those who had reported only infrequent receipt.
Conclusions:
NYC pharmacists had low levels of knowledge and familiarity with EPT law and reported infrequent receipt of EPT prescriptions. Pharmacists and providers should be further educated about EPT laws and regulations so that prescription-EPT use can be accurately monitored, and to assure the success of this partner treatment strategy.