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What is being measured?
Chlamydia is an infection that is spread by sexual contact. Since there are usually no symptoms, Chlamydia is sometimes called a 'silent' disease. If a person is tested and Chlamydia is found, the infection can be treated and cured with antibiotics. If a woman has Chlamydia and it is not found and treated, it can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, which can cause infertility.
A test for Chlamydia in women involves swabbing the vagina when doing a pelvic exam and can be done at the same time a woman receives a Pap test. Because Chlamydia is most common among young women, this website's quality information looks at what percentage of young women patients at each doctor's office got this test.
The quality score is based on young women patients who made at least one visit to a doctor's office during a recent 1-year period. 'Young women patients' mean sexually active women ages 16–24.
For this test, what is meant by better, average, and below?
For each doctor's office, the percentage of patients who got a Chlamydia test is turned into a quality score by comparing the percentage for that doctor's office to the statewide average of 43.3%.
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'Better' means 53.50% or more women patients got a Chlamydia test
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'Average' means between 33.3% and 53.4% of women patients got a Chlamydia test
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Below' means 33.20% or fewer women patients got a Chlamydia test
How can you use this information?
Both in Oregon and nationwide, the low percentages for Chlamydia testing show that this type of testing is not done nearly as often as it should be. If you are a sexually active woman between the ages of 16 and 24, talk with your doctor about whether a Chlamydia test is right for you.
