About the Authors

Martin Fisher

Contributed equally to this work with: Martin Fisher, Sonali Wayal, Helen Smith

martin.fisher@bsuh.nhs.uk

Affiliation Department of Genitourinary/HIV Medicine, Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, Brighton, United Kingdom

Sonali Wayal

Contributed equally to this work with: Martin Fisher, Sonali Wayal, Helen Smith

Affiliation Division of Primary Care and Public Health, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, Falmer, United Kingdom

Helen Smith

Contributed equally to this work with: Martin Fisher, Sonali Wayal, Helen Smith

Affiliation Division of Primary Care and Public Health, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, Falmer, United Kingdom

Carrie Llewellyn

‡ These authors also contributed equally to this work.

Affiliation Division of Primary Care and Public Health, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, Falmer, United Kingdom

Sarah Alexander

‡ These authors also contributed equally to this work.

Affiliation Public Health England, Sexually Transmitted Bacteria Reference Laboratory and Virus Reference Department, London, United Kingdom

Catherine Ison

‡ These authors also contributed equally to this work.

Affiliation Public Health England, Sexually Transmitted Bacteria Reference Laboratory and Virus Reference Department, London, United Kingdom

John V Parry

‡ These authors also contributed equally to this work.

Affiliation Public Health England, Sexually Transmitted Bacteria Reference Laboratory and Virus Reference Department, London, United Kingdom

Garth Singleton

‡ These authors also contributed equally to this work.

Affiliation Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom

Nicky Perry

‡ These authors also contributed equally to this work.

Affiliation Department of Genitourinary/HIV Medicine, Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, Brighton, United Kingdom

Daniel Richardson

‡ These authors also contributed equally to this work.

Affiliation Department of Genitourinary/HIV Medicine, Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, Brighton, United Kingdom

on behalf of the Brighton Home Sampling Kit Project Steering Group

Membership of the Brighton Home Sampling Kit Project Steering Group is provided in the Acknowledgments.

Competing Interests

All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at http://www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf and declare: that APTIMA unisex swabs were provided free of costs by Gen-Probe (San Diego, California, USA). The findings reported in this study do not reflect the opinion of Gen-Probe. This does not alter the authors' adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. No financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years, no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: MF HS SW. Analyzed the data: SW MF DR. Wrote the paper: MF SW HS. Discussed the results and commented on the manuscript: MF SW HS CL CI NP GS DR SA JP. Implemented the study: SW GS.