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Incident Trichomonas vaginalis Is Associated With Partnership Concurrency: A Longitudinal Cohort Study
Chris R Kenyon1, Jozefien Buyze, Mark Klebanoff
1From the *HIV/STI Unit, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium; †Department of Medicine, University of Cape Town, South Africa; ‡Clinical Trials Unit, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium; §Department of Epidemiology, The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital, ∥Department of Pediatrics and Obstetrics and Gynecology, The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Columbus, OH; and ¶Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Institute for Genome Sciences, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD.
Background:
Sexual partner concurrency (PC) has been shown to be a risk factor for a number of sexually transmitted infections but it is unknown if it is a risk factor for Trichomonas vaginalis (TV).
Objective:
We assess if there is an association between PC and incident TV infection.
Study Design:
We used mixed effects logistic regression to assess the association between PC and incident TV in the Longitudinal Study of Vaginal Flora, a cohort study of 3620 women followed quarterly for 5 visits.
Results:
Trichomonas vaginalis was more common in those reporting definite/possible/unknown PC (15.6%/15.0%/18.3%) than those reporting no PC (5.2%; P < 0.001 for all 3 comparisons). After controlling for a range of confounders, incident TV remained associated with reporting that one's partner definitely (adjusted odds ratio, 5.4; 95% confidence interval, 3.7-8.0) and possibly (adjusted odds ratio, 3.4; 95% confidence interval, 2.2-5.1) engaged in PC in the preceding period.
Conclusions:
Partner concurrency was associated with incident TV infection.
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