Table 3. Perceived Barriers to Partner Treatment Themes With Illustrative Quotations.

Theme	Illustrative Quotations
Lack of transportation to receive medical care	“Yes, transportation probably” [identified as a partner barrier to obtain testing and treatment for an STI exposure]
	“Finding a way.”
Fear of positive STI results	“Unless they don't really want to know. Some people don't want to know … as soon as they find out they get all depressed and stuff … I don't think they want to know, they are scared.”
	“They are probably scared, dudes don't like going to the doctor for some reason. I don't know why.”
Poor knowledge of STIs	“Because I had some symptoms, like little blisters, and I guess it was genital herpes. Well not genital herpes, but it was a type of herpes. It's the one that you can get rid of. But mine, when I went I didn't have herpes, mine didn't get that far, I had gonorrhea.”
Poor knowledge of appropriate treatment regimens	“How safe are condoms and the viral and bacterial STDs that are out there? And [what are] treatments for them too?”
	“They would probably go to the store and buy some penicillin pills and take them.”
	“And another thing is when people go ahead and they get treated, they go home and they think it is OK. It's gone. They don't go by what's on the paper, they go back [to sex] when they think.”

STD = sexually transmitted disease; STI = sexually transmitted infection.