People who have multiple sex partners tend not to recall a significant number of them in the process of contact tracing. In the current randomized study, investigators used supplementary interview techniques during contact interviews regarding chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis. Participants (n=123) were persons who had multiple partners during the previous three months.

After participants recalled partners on their own, interviewers read back the list and prompted nonspecifically. Participants were then randomly assigned to receive one of three recall cues: "(1) an experimental set of cues consisting of locations where people meet partners, role relationships, network ties, and first letters of names; (2) another experimental set including common first names; and (3) control cues referring to individual characteristics (e.g., physical appearance)."

Nonspecific prompting and reading back the list of partners increased the number of additional sex partners participants recalled by a mean 3-5 percent. The combined location, role, network, and letter cues were more effective on average for detecting additional partners (0.57) than common first-name cues (0.29) and personal characteristics cues (0.28). Altogether, the supplementary interview techniques increased the number of partners that participants recalled by 12 percent and revealed sexual networks that otherwise would not have been.

"Elicitation of sex partners can be enhanced in contact interviews with simple interviewing techniques, resulting in improved network ascertainment and sexually transmitted disease case finding," the authors concluded.

Back to other news for March 30, 2005

Search the Newsroom archive