Assessing access to Sexual Health care in Remote and Rural Scotland
Research type
Research Study
Full title
What is the extent of Chlamydia testing and positivety across the Scottish Highlands? Where are people in the Scottish Highlands tested?
IRAS ID
128063
Contact name
Katherine Hawkins
Contact email
Research summary
The aim of the project is to gain an understanding of inequalities surrounding access to sexual healthcare in remote and rural areas, using the Scottish Highlands as a locus for the study.
We know people in remote areas often have great distances to travel to access services. We also know that in small rural communities, confidentiality is difficult to maintain. This problem can be exacerbated by the sensitivity of the topic. We do not currently know where people in remote and rural communities go to access testing/treatment or much about the quality of service that they get compared with their urban counterparts.
This project aims to look at access to sexual healthcare using chlamydia testing as a focus for the study. We will assess accessibility as well as the quality of the service. We will study tests from the whole of NHS Highland, which will include a sample of both urban and rural testing.
1 We will find out where people are tested in relation to where they live as well as the type of test they opt for (postal/Genito-urinary medical (GUM) clinic/local GP).
2 We will look at testing in relation to the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, an area-based index of socioeconomic status.
3 We will assess the rate of positivity in rural compared with urban settings.
4 We will assess the quality of testing ie whether a swab was rejected/appropriately taken.
These results will give us an idea of health behaviour in relation to rural STI testing, and help to identify inequalities in order to inform the rational allocation of funding to services. They will also help answer the question of whether rural areas require a different approach to urban areas.
REC name
North of Scotland Research Ethics Committee 2
REC reference
13/NS/0118
Date of REC Opinion
6 Sep 2013
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion