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Context: About 490 million cases of curable Reproductive Tract Infections (RTI) occur throughout the world, of which 79 million cases occur in India annually. Sexually Transmitted Infections/Reproductive Tract Infections (STI/RTI) confers a huge economic burden on the individual and the health system. Complications of RTI/STI are many, ranging from chronic pain syndrome to infertility. Most of these complications can be prevented by early diagnosis and treatment., Aims: To assess knowledge, attitude and practices on STI/RTIs among married women aged 15-45 years in rural Haryana., Setting and Design: Cross-sectional study, conducted in selected villages under the primary health centre Mandi, Sonepat, Haryana., Subjects and Methods: Systematic sampling was used to cover 10 villages. In each village, every tenth house was sampled, taking first house from the center of the village. Face-to-face interview was conducted using pretested questionnaire., Statistical Analysis Used: Descriptive statistics and results were described in percentages., Results: A total of 344 women were interviewed. About 44% women had never heard of STI/RTI. The prevalence of self-reported symptoms of STI/RTI was very high (60%). Only 40% of them opted for treatment and most common cause for not opting for treatment was that they considered it as a minor problem. Advice for use of condom during the treatment was received by only 20% of patients and only 26.5% of their husbands also received treatment., Conclusions: Overall knowledge, attitude and practices relating to STI/RTI among married women in rural Haryana was poor. The prevalence of self-reported STI/RTI was found to be high and treatment seeking behavior was poor.

Introduction: Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are an important public health problem because of their adverse effects on reproductive health of men and women. About 5% of adult population in India suffers from STIs. To tackle this issue the government has set up reproductive tract infection (RTI) clinics across the country., Aims: To assess the effect of supportive supervision on the quality of services provided in STI/RTI clinics in the state of Haryana, India., Settings and Design: Selected state-run STI/RTI clinics, facility-based pre- and post evaluation study., Material and Methods: Sixteen STI/RTI clinics were selected for the study, including six from government facilities and 10 from targeted intervention sites across five districts of Haryana. From each of the selected sites one physician in-charge was interviewed twice with an interval of 2-3 months using pretested formats. Scores were given in selected domains of STI/RTI management for each visit and the improvement was assessed., Statistical Analysis: Wilcoxon signed rank test., Results: A total of 16 physicians one from each site were interviewed. Improvement in mean score of the physicians for knowledge about STI/RTI was 3.6 points. Similarly for skills score, which measured the physicians' skill in various domains of running STI/RTI clinics, the mean improvement was 3.1 points. Both the improvements were statistically significant (P < 0.001)., Conclusions: Supportive supervision proved to be a useful tool for monitoring and improving the quality of services provided by the STI/RTI clinics.