Outcome of partner notification in patients diagnosed with genital warts attending a provincial clinic in East Anglia, England.

We retrospectively reviewed partner notification of patients diagnosed with first episode genital warts seen in the genitourinary (GU) medicine clinic, Great Yarmouth, UK, from January 2005 to December 2008. Of 947 patients diagnosed with genital warts, 486 (51.3%) were men, median age 25 years; 461 (48.7%) were women, median age 21 years and the partner notification index was 32.9%. In our cohort, 310 patients 33.2% reported having had a casual partner that could not be traced. The median relationship duration of partners whose contact attended was nine months and those whose contact did not attend was two months, (χ(2) = 49.72, P < 0.0001). The odds ratio (OR) of a contact attending after seeing a health adviser was 2.94 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.79-4.86). In our cohort 35.6% of contacts whose partners saw a health adviser attended compared with 15.7% of contacts whose partner did not see a health adviser (χ(2) = 19.7, P < 0.0001). Among the contacts 26% had genital warts, 28% had another sexually transmitted infection (STI) and 12% had both genital warts and another STI. The low partner notification index was associated with the reported casual partnerships seen in the cohort. Partner notification was enhanced when patients saw a health adviser.