Can Automated Text Messaging Successfully Monitor Antibiotic Adherence for Urban Adolescents and Young Women Managed for Pelvic Inflammatory Disease in the Outpatient Setting.
Pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) is a reproductive health disorder that disproportionately affects young,1,2 and African American women in the United States.3-5 Without proper treatment, PID
can cause tubal scarring, infertility, ectopic pregnancy, and chronic pelvic pain. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines no longer recommend hospitalization for mild
to moderate PID7 as inpatient treatment is expensive,8,9 and offers limited reproductive health benefits over outpatient management. Despite evidence that youth with PID struggle with adherence to therapy.
For adolescents who make up 20% of all new PID cases,12 the shift from inpatient to outpatient treatment without additional clinical support may have been shortsighted. Adolescents often engage in high-risk sexual behaviors, like unprotected sex and sexual concurrency that increase exposure to sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and PID.6,13 Once diagnosed, adolescents with PID struggle to adhere to antibiotics and follow-up appointments. A 2010 randomized controlled trial (RCT) investigated the benefit of a 6-minute interventional video on adolescent’s adherence to
PID self-care recommendations.
Additionally, poor adherence to therapy increases adolescents’ risk for short- and long-term sequelae. Adolescents with PID are more likely than adult women to develop recurrent
PID and subsequent STDs.18 Each PID episode substantially increases the risk of tubal infertility and chronic pelvic pain. Such disparities suggest that youth-focused interventions are needed to
improve health outcomes for adolescents and young adult women managed for PID in outpatient settings.
Pediatr Neonatal Nurs Open J. 2022; 8(1): 14-24. doi: 10.17140/PNNOJ-8-135
