Article Text
Abstract
Background Opt out HIV testing has been a policy in our sexual health clinic for over 10 years. In 2010, in the UK, 78% of those attending a sexual health clinic were offered a HIV test, in our clinic among women was 69%.
Aim To evaluate and describe the patients who did not have a HIV whilst attending our sexual health clinic.
Method A retrospective case note review of women who did not have a HIV test between 1/1/14 to 31/3/14.
Results 197 females were identified (age range 13–63 years, with a mean, median and mode of 38, 20 and 18 years). Ethnic distribution was 69% White, 12% Black, 9% Asian, and 10% other ethnic backgrounds. 131 (66%) attended for a STI screen, 28 for contraception, 35 for both, and 4 with other problems. 33 patients refused to have a HIV test; however 150 (76%) cases had no documented reason for not performing a HIV test. Other reasons documented include: negative HIV test in past 4 months (2%), incubation period discussed/patient to return (2%), needle phobia (1%), no sexual contact (1%) and failed phlebotomy (0.5%). 182 (92%) had a NAAT test for chlamydia and gonorrhoea. There were 15 identified cases of chlamydia, 2 with chlamydia and gonorrhoea, and 1 case of gonorrhoea.
Conclusion Only 47 (23%) patients had a documented reason for refusal of HIV testing, however more commonly no reason was documented. We plan to present these findings to our department for discussion aiming to improve opportunistic HIV testing.