Scotland has shown that their STI-awareness campaigns have been working after there was a large rise in the number of tests being requested at Scottish GUM clinics this year. Though there has been an increase in the number of diagnosis being made, these have been dwarfed by the 16% rise in people asking for tests.
The Health Improvement programme manager for NHS Scotland, Shirley Fraser, said that a lot of the rise is due to the “worried well”, who have been encouraged to get tested if there has been any chance they were exposed to an STI.
She said that the NHS had recently produced a series of leaflets outlining the symptoms of different STIs, so people could identify if they were experiencing any of them and then go to get tested. The NHS has also been pushing for people starting new relationships to get tested.
Latest NHS figures have shown that cases of STIs have almost doubled in a decade, with almost a quarter of new diagnosis amongst under-20s. 1.2% more diagnosis were made, meaning that 23,171 tested positive for an STI in 2008. It is believed the number of people with undiagnosed STIs will be far higher.