Reporting of gonorrhea by private physicians: a behavioral study

Physicians in the Denver Metropolitan Area were randomly assigned to study groups and exposed to an intervention designed to test current hypotheses concerning the reasons for underreporting of gonorrhea (lack of saliency in the request, patient interference, violation of the physician-patient relationship, insufficient rewards and excessive administrative cost to the reporter). A periodic telephone contact, initiated by the Health Department and requiring only contact between clerical personnel, more than doubled the number of reported cases. The effect was most striking for those who had not previously reported, and for doctors who practiced alone. An estimate of 42 per cent was obtained for the proportion of cases reported, substantially higher than that produced by retrospective surveys based on recall. The impact of undernotification on total morbidity will vary with the preexisting mix of public and private reporting. The telephone reporting system appears to be an inexpensive and effective program tool for determining that impact locally.