Screening for Chlamydial Infection: Summary of the Evidence. Table 1. Summary of Evidence

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Table 1. Summary of Evidence^I,1-4

Key questions	Evidence codes^a	Quality of evidence^b
Arrow 1
Does screening reduce adverse health outcomes?
Nonpregnant women	I, II-3	Good: one randomized controlled trial indicates screening reduces pelvic inflammatory disease.
Pregnant women	II-2, II-3	Fair: no new studies; 2 studies used in prior recommendations indicate improved birth outcomes when pregnant women are screened and treated, although the control group was based on temporal changes in treatment standards in one key study, differences between cases and controls were not different in another study.
Men	III	Poor: no studies of effectiveness of screening in preventing acute infections or complications.
Arrow 2
Does screening reduce the prevalence of infection?	II-3	Poor-fair: uncontrolled studies based on time trends after initiation of screening, studies from many populations and settings report declining rates.
Are risk factors useful for selective screening?
Nonpregnant women	II-2	Fair: few studies in low prevalence, community populations, studies agree on age.
Pregnant women	III	Poor: very few studies based on small populations, descriptive.
Men	III	Poor: subjects mainly from sexually transmitted disease clinics, jail, etc, descriptive.
What screening tests should be performed?
Nonpregnant women	II-1	Fair: many studies about test performance under study conditions, not well tested in large screening populations with low prevalence.
Pregnant women	II-1	Fair: few studies about test performance under study conditions, not tested in large screening populations.
Men	II-1	Fair: many studies about test performance under study conditions, not well tested in large screening populations with low prevalence.
Arrow 3
What are the implications of recurrent infection?
Nonpregnant women	II-2	Fair: studies include high-risk subjects, lack of internal control groups, report descriptive data.
^[a] Study design categories (Guide to Clinical Preventive Services, 56). ^[b] Quality of evidence ratings based on criteria developed by the third U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. ^[I] I: Randomized, controlled trials. ^[1] II-1: Controlled trials without randomization. ^[2] II-2: Cohort or case-control analytic studies. ^[3] II-3: Multiple time series, dramatic uncontrolled experiments. ^[4] III: Opinions of respected authorities, descriptive epidemiology.

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Table 1. Summary of EvidenceI,1-4

Table 1. Summary of Evidence^I,1-4