Publications

Our study aimed to establish barriers to early treatment seeking among patients with sexually transmittedinfections at Kaproron Health Centre IV. This was a facility-based cross-sectional survey employing quantitativemethods. The study enrolled a total of 122 randomly selected participants who had consented to participate in thestudy. Data was collected using a pretested interviewer-administered questionnaire and analysed using STATAsoftware version 14. Descriptive statistics were used to present data as graphs and tables of frequencies while forinferential statistics odds ratios and P-value set at 0.05 corresponding to a 95% confidence interval were used. Thestudy revealed that 56.86% of the participants sought their STI treatment late. Participants’ age, sex, symptomseverity and cost of services at Kaproron Health Centre IV presented as significant barriers to early STI treatmentseeking. Participants aged 36-45 (AOR-0.16, p-0.04, CI-0.03-0.88) and ≥46 years (AOR-0.17, p-0.05, CI-0.03-0.98)had lower odds of seeking treatment early which was similar for female participants (COR-0.38, p-0.02, CI-0.17—0.86). Conversely, participants with severe STI symptoms (COR-2.8, p-0.02, CI-1.19-6.58) and those who reportedSTI services at Kaproron Health Centre IV as affordable (AOR-3.73, p-0.011, CI-1.35-10.25) were 3.73 times morelikely to seek early treatment. A higher proportion sought STI treatment late. Age, gender, symptom severity andservice costs presented significant barriers to seeking early treatment. Mass STI screening programs shouldtarget individuals aged 26 and above, females and impoverished communities.Keywords: STI treatment, Patients, Age, Gender, Symptom severity.