The Northern Territory Disease Control Bulletin
Disease Control Bulletin
Territory Health Services, Centre for Disease Control
Northern Territory disease control bulletin; E-Journals; PublicationNT; Northern Territory disease control bulletin
2002-03
Casuarina
Date:2002-03; This publication contains may contain links to external sites. These external sites may no longer be active.; Made available via the Publications (Legal Deposit) Act 2004 (NT).
English
Communicable diseases; Reporting; Northern Territory; Statistics; Periodicals
Northern Territory Government
Casuarina
Northern Territory disease control bulletin
v. 9 no. 1
application/pdf
1440-883X
Attribution International 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)
Northern Territory Government
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/233806
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/655675
The Northern Territory Disease Control Bulletin Vol 9, No.1, March 2002 14 participants included two RNs, one urban and one from a remote community, a STI project officer and a sexual health educator. Table Course attendance Evaluation On a scale of 1 to 5 (with 5 representing that personal learning objectives were very well met), the course was rated 4 or 5 by all participants (50% each). All participants who completed an evaluation form felt the course should be highly recommended to all. Participants were also asked to list what in particular they learnt from the course that was new. These responses included: the role of HSV PCR (5) an approach to vulvar pain the need for presumptive treatment of PID a better understanding of syphilis serology which swabs to be used for which clinical scenarios the epidemiology of STIs in the NT the management of HSV the best practice approach to STI screening in women the redundancy of endourethral swabs Discussion Having 26 participants at the course was regarded as very good. That 11 attendees (9 GPs) were from rural/remote clinical settings was a direct result of running the course in conjunction with the NT Remote Workforce Agency Family Support Weekend, a self care program for remote GPs that brings them into Darwin for the weekend. Four of the 7 urban GPs and the 3 of the 4 urban GP registrars who attended the course worked in Aboriginal health settings. In other words, only 4 of the 20 GPs and GP registrars in attendance were from non Indigenous practices. This presumably reflects an awareness by GPs working in Aboriginal health of the huge excess burden of STIs in this population, and the need to be competent in screening, diagnosis and management of these infections. Notification rates of bacterial STIs in nonAboriginal people in the NT are also significantly higher than those of other states and nationally. In 2000, the rates of chlamydia were 118 and 90/100 000 in the NT (non-Indigenous) and Australia respectively and 54 and 29/100 000 for gonorrhoea. The NT has a young mobile population, is a popular tourist destination for Australian and international visitors, and is a region with increasingly strong links to SE Asia, an area with a high prevalence of HIV. GPs in the NT working in non-Indigenous settings also need to be competent in STI management. As stated, despite the effort to pitch the course at both urban and rural/remote GPs, attendance was proportionately poorer in the urban group. There is a continuing need to engage the mainstream GP population in future educational events on STIs. The course was universally highly regarded by all participants who completed an evaluation form (16/26). This may have reflected the diverse range of topics covered, a predominantly case based approach and the use of a variety of speakers (4). The length of the course, at 5 hours of actual teaching, meant participants were not too tired at the end of the day. One participant felt the only way the course could have been improved was to make it longer! Other comments included a need for greater interaction with the audience and more small-group exercises. The compilation of a comprehensive reference package for this course was a valuable spin-off from the development of this course. This package should have an ongoing role in the orientation and training of new staff in CDC, as Practitioner Location Number GP Urban Rural 7 9 GP registrars Urban Rural 4 0 Other doctors Urban Rural 1 1 RNs Urban Rural 1 1 Other Urban Rural 2 0 Total 26