Incentives for voluntary HIV testing in NHS staff

Abstract

Since the NHS is recruiting staff from areas of high HIV prevalence, VCT should be encouraged. NHS staff require information on how to access testing as well as the benefits of early detection of blood-borne viruses.

Voluntary HIV testing and risky sexual behaviours among health care workers: a survey in rural and urban Burkina Faso

“…However, according to the 2005 Ethiopia Demographic Health Survey, 4% of women and 6% of men had ever been tested for HIV [33]. Studies conducted in Zambia, Zimbabwe and the UK reported that acceptance of HIV testing was lower among women than men [20,34,35]. The Zimbabwean study specifically reported that women were allegedly more worried about their HIV status and more fearful of HIV testing than men [34].…”

Public and Healthcare Practitioner Attitudes towards HIV Testing: Review of Evidence from the United Kingdom (UK)

“…Studies included in the review (including both public and HCP attitudes to testing) were peer reviewed papers (n= 40) [16,[24][25][26][27][28]30,32,33,35,[38][39][40][41]43,[45][46][47][48][49][50][52][53][54][55][56][57]59,61,62,65,69,71,72,75,79,80,84] abstracts from BHIVA conference proceedings (n=20) [29,31,36,37,42,51,58,60] and published reports (n=4) [34,44,85]. UK locations of included studies were as follows; Scotland (n=9) [34,…”

“…The majority of the studies were conducted in areas of high HIV prevalence (> 2/1000 adult population) such as London, Brighton and Glasgow. Studies used a variety of different data collection methods which included: questionnaires (n= 29) [31,33,35,[38][39][40][41]47,48,[51][52][53]55,58,59,60,62,65,66,67,70,71,73,74,75,76,78] focus groups (n=5) [32,51,54 69,84] interviews (n=4) [29,30,50,56], surveys (n=13) [16,24-28, 44,64,68,72,77,80,85], questionnaires and surveys (n=1) [43], questionnaires and focus groups (n=1) [61], interviews and focus groups (n=3) [45,46,49], interviews and questionnaires (n=2) (study included in Table 1 (public attitudes) and also Table 2 (HCP attitudes) [34], survey and questionnaire (n=1) [43], survey and interviews (n=1) [63], audit and questionnaires (n=1) [79], and reviews of case notes/admission notes (n= 3) ...…”

“…For evidence on attitudes of the public towards HIV testing the review included the following population groups: newly registered patients in primary care (n=2) [51,56], GP population (n=1) [31], general population living in Britain (n=3) [24,52,60], patients who were offered an HIV test in 4 settings (Emergency Department, Acute care unit, Dermatology outpatients, and primary care) (n=1) [53], HIV positive women attending Genitourinary Medicine (GUM) clinics (n=1) [50], individuals presenting to polyclinic in hospital (n=1) [55], young people (aged <24 years) attending an open clinic (n=1) [85], users of STI testing service (n=1) [54], patients within hospital medical admissions (n=1) [36], patients attending GUM clinics and open access clinics (n=5) [33,35,37,40,57], NHS staff in hospital (n=1) [39], MSM attending GUM clinics and sexual health clinics (n=1) [41], HIV positive and negative MSM (n=3) [29,46,48], Black Africans (tested and untested) (n=10) [25][26][27][28]34,[42][43][44]58], HIV positive Black Africans (n=3) [16,30,38], gay men (tested and untested) (n=4) [45,47,49,59], groups of MSM, Black Africans, heterosexual men and women (tested and untested)(n=2) [32,…”

“…For evidence on attitudes of HCP towards HIV testing the review included the following study populations; GPs in primary care practices (n=7) [34,51,[62][63][64]67,77] GPs and nurses in primary care practices (n=1) [66], GPs attending study day on STDs (n=1) [65], hospital doctors (n=8) (70)(71)(72)(73)76,(78)(79)(80), NHS staff working in hospital (n=2) [39,68], hospital consultant surgeons (n=1) [75], hospital Intensive Care Unit (ICU) staff (n=1) [74], staff working in four settings (Emergency Department, Acute care unit, Dermatology outpatients and primary care) (n=2) [53,69].…”