1. Hiv Testing in Secondary Care: A Multicentre Longitudinal Mixed Methods Electronic Survey of Non-Hiv Specialist Hospital Physicians in South-East Scotland and Northern England
- Author
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Naomi S. Bulteel, Victoria Parris, Meghan R Perry, Ewan Hunter, Nikhil Premchand, Naomi Henderson, and Richard Capstick
- Subjects
medicine.medical_specialty ,business.industry ,HIV diagnosis ,Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) ,Specialty ,virus diseases ,General Medicine ,Hiv testing ,medicine.disease_cause ,Hospitals ,Secondary Care ,Education ,HIV Testing ,Secondary care ,Patient population ,Hiv test ,England ,Scotland ,Physicians ,Family medicine ,medicine ,South east ,Humans ,Electronics ,business - Abstract
Background Increasing the uptake of HIV testing in people who may have undiagnosed HIV is essential to reduce the morbidity associated with late HIV diagnosis. Methods We conducted a multicentre, longitudinal, mixed-methods study, surveying the attitudes, knowledge and practice of non-HIV specialist hospital physicians in South-East Scotland and North-East England with respect to HIV testing. Results We found that although awareness of indications for HIV testing had improved over time, only 13% of clinicians recognised all of the surveyed HIV indicator conditions. Physicians were better at recognising the indicator conditions relevant to their specialty. The perception of working with a low-risk patient population was the most frequently cited barrier to offering an HIV test. Only a third of study respondents had requested more than 10 HIV tests in the preceding year. Conclusions Our study supports a need for targeted and sustained educational initiatives to increase rates of HIV testing in secondary care.
- Published
- 2021
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