Pattern of Clinical Presentations at a Sexually Transmitted Infections Clinic in South-West Nigeria

Abstract

Introduction: Sexually transmitted infections are crucial in public health, they impact sexual and reproductive health in all age groups, especially the reproductive age group. Identifying the common clinical presentations is essential and this was the objective of this study.

Methods: This was a retrospective cross-sectional study. Ethical approval was sought and obtained. Data were obtained from the clinical and relevant laboratory records of 190 patients managed at the Sexually Transmitted Infections Clinic of UNIOSUN Teaching Hospital. The data gathered covered a period spread over 20 years. Analysis was done using the IBM Statistical Product and Service Solutions (IBM^®SPSS^®Statistics) version 25.0. Association between categorical variables was carried out using the Chi-square and Fisher exact tests.

Results: The majority of the patients (n=160, 84.2%) were females and young adults (n=155, 76.3%). The age range was between 14 and 82 years with a mean age of 31.91±9.2 years. The majority of females (n=85, 44.7%) had candidiasis, with or without other infections, while a diagnosis of pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) was made in 39 (20.5%) of the women. Fifteen patients (7.9%) had gonorrhoea while 5 (2.6%) had syphilis. Other common cases seen were non-specific vaginitis (20.5%), perineal warts (7.3%), and herpes infection (3.7%). About 93.2% of the patients had favourable outcomes on follow-up visits.

Conclusion: Women and young adults are likely to present more at the Sexually Transmitted Infections Clinics in our Hospital. The commonest diagnoses are candidiasis, pelvic inflammatory disease and non-specific vaginitis.