Chlamydia (CT) positivity among Pregnancy Test Only (PTO) visits and non-PTO visits in women 24 and younger (January- September, 2011)

Previous studies have shown that women who come to a clinic for a pregnancy test, or “pregnancy test only” (PTO) visit have chlamydia positivity between 4 and 13%. In response to this data, the Region I (New England) Infertility Prevention Project (IPP) began to collect PTO data in January 2011. The objective was to measure chlamydia positivity rates in PTO visits to determine if it was higher than positivity among non-PTO visits, and determine if women who came for PTO visits were a high-risk population. In June 2010 the Region I IPP Advisory Board added PTO visit as a response option to “Reason for Visit” to its IPP lab slip and regional data set. For analysis, data were limited to Family Planning clinic site type and women 24 and younger. In this population, Chlamydia positivity among PTO visits varied by state: ME 9.52%, NH 7.65%, RI 4.44%, CT 3.85%, MA 2.76%, and VT 2.3%. Chlamydia positivity in non-PTO visits in the same population was: ME 5.86%, NH 5.00%, RI 9.27%, CT 4.19%, MA 6.27%, and VT 3.54%. Chlamydia positivity in PTO visits was only higher than the non-PTO visits in two of the six states. Unlike previous studies, chlamydia positivity in PTO visits was not universally higher than non-PTO visits. Further analysis, including data validation, should be conducted to determine why chlamydia positivity among PTO visits was not higher than non-PTO visits.