IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0072812.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Awareness of HIV Testing Guidelines Is Low among Swiss Emergency Doctors: A Survey of Five Teaching Hospitals in French-Speaking Switzerland

Author

Listed:
  • Katharine E A Darling
  • Nathalie de Allegri
  • Daniel Fishman
  • Reza Kehtari
  • Olivier T Rutschmann
  • Matthias Cavassini
  • Olivier Hugli

Abstract

Background: In Switzerland, 30% of HIV-infected individuals are diagnosed late. To optimize HIV testing, the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) updated ‘Provider Induced Counseling and Testing’ (PICT) recommendations in 2010. These permit doctors to test patients if HIV infection is suspected, without explicit consent or pre-test counseling; patients should nonetheless be informed that testing will be performed. We examined awareness of these updated recommendations among emergency department (ED) doctors. Methods: We conducted a questionnaire-based survey among 167 ED doctors at five teaching hospitals in French-Speaking Switzerland between 1st May and 31st July 2011. For 25 clinical scenarios, participants had to state whether HIV testing was indicated or whether patient consent or pre-test counseling was required. We asked how many HIV tests participants had requested in the previous month, and whether they were aware of the FOPH testing recommendations. Results: 144/167 doctors (88%) returned the questionnaire. Median postgraduate experience was 6.5 years (interquartile range [IQR] 3; 12). Mean percentage of correct answers was 59 ± 11%, senior doctors scoring higher (P=0.001). Lowest-scoring questions pertained to acute HIV infection and scenarios where patient consent was not required. Median number of test requests was 1 (IQR 0-2, range 0-10). Only 26/144 (18%) of participants were aware of the updated FOPH recommendations. Those aware had higher scores (P=0.001) but did not perform more HIV tests. Conclusions: Swiss ED doctors are not aware of the national HIV testing recommendations and rarely perform HIV tests. Improved recommendation dissemination and adherence is required if ED doctors are to contribute to earlier HIV diagnoses.

Suggested Citation

  • Katharine E A Darling & Nathalie de Allegri & Daniel Fishman & Reza Kehtari & Olivier T Rutschmann & Matthias Cavassini & Olivier Hugli, 2013. "Awareness of HIV Testing Guidelines Is Low among Swiss Emergency Doctors: A Survey of Five Teaching Hospitals in French-Speaking Switzerland," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(9), pages 1-1, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0072812
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0072812
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0072812
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0072812&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0072812?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jean-Blaise Wasserfallen & Alexandre Hyjazi & Matthias Cavassini, 2009. "Comparison of HIV-infected patients’ characteristics, healthcare resources use and cost between native and migrant patients," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 54(1), pages 5-10, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cleo Gillet & Katharine E A Darling & Nicolas Senn & Matthias Cavassini & Olivier Hugli, 2018. "Targeted versus non-targeted HIV testing offered via electronic questionnaire in a Swiss emergency department: A randomized controlled study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(3), pages 1-14, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Krentz, Hartmut B. & Gill, M. John, 2011. "Comparison of healthcare costs between local and immigrant HIV populations living in Southern Alberta, Canada," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 103(2), pages 124-129.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0072812. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.