Improving the quality of self-collected swab specimens for the detection of Chlamydia trachomatis and Neisseria gonorrhoeae in a clinical setting.

Background: The practice of patient self-collected swab specimens for Neisseria gonorrhoeae and Chlamydia trachomatis is supported in the literature.

Local problem: Health care providers observed that patients sometimes performed their self-swabs incorrectly resulting in cancelled or invalid specimens.

Methods: The clinic's outdated visual aids were replaced with new visual aids. The goal was to improve health care provider proficiency in providing the health teaching and to reduce the clinic's number of cancelled or invalid swab specimens. Staff evaluated the visual aids using an online pretest and post-test survey. The percentage of invalid swabs was calculated before and after project implementation.

Intervention: The posters were designed and printed. In-person teaching on the project and using the new visual aids was provided.

Results: There was no change in the reported proficiency of staff in providing health teaching for self-collected swab specimens. There was a reduction in staff observed self-swabbing errors. Three percent of rectal swabs were reported as invalid in the 2 weeks before project implementation, and 1.4% of rectal swabs were invalid in the 2 weeks after.

Conclusions: Providing patient health teaching using verbal instructions combined with visual diagrams can improve patients' ability to retain health information.