You are here

  • Home
  • Online First
  • An effective strategy to diagnose HIV infection: findings from a national audit of HIV partner notification outcomes in sexual health and infectious disease clinics in the UK

Article Text

Article menu

other Versions

Download PDFPDF
Clinical
Original article
An effective strategy to diagnose HIV infection: findings from a national audit of HIV partner notification outcomes in sexual health and infectious disease clinics in the UK
  1. Michael Rayment1,
  2. Hilary Curtis2,
  3. Chris Carne3,
  4. Hugo McClean4,
  5. Gill Bell5,
  6. Claudia Estcourt6,
  7. Jonathon Roberts7,
  8. Ed Wilkins8,
  9. Steven Estreich9,
  10. Georgina Morris10,
  11. Jara Phattey11,
  12. Ann K Sullivan1
  13. on behalf of the members of the British Society for Sexual Health and HIV National Audit Group, and the British HIV Association Audit and Standards Subcommittee
    1. 1Directorate of HIV/GU Medicine, Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK
    2. 2Audit and Standards Sub-committee, British HIV Association, London, UK
    3. 3Genitourinary Medicine, Cambridge Community Services, Cambridge, UK
    4. 4City Health Care Partnership, Hull, Kingston Upon Hull, UK
    5. 5Department of GU Medicine, Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield, UK
    6. 6Reader in Sexual Health and HIV, Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Centre for Immunology and Infectious Disease, London, UK
    7. 7Brighton and Sussex University Hospital NHS Trust, Brighton, East Sussex, UK
    8. 8Department of Infectious Diseases, North Manchester General Hospital, Manchester, UK
    9. 9Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust, Surrey, UK
    10. 10Department of Genitourinary Medicine, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Leeds, UK
    11. 11Genitourinary Medicine, Whittall Street Clinic, University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, Birmingham, UK
    1. Correspondence to Dr Michael Rayment, Consultant Physician, St Stephen's Centre, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, 369 Fulham Road, London SW10 9NH, UK; michaelrayment{at}nhs.net

    Abstract

    Objectives Partner notification (PN) is a key public health intervention in the control of STIs. Data regarding its clinical effectiveness in the context of HIV are lacking. We sought to audit HIV PN outcomes across the UK.

    Methods All UK sexual health and HIV services were invited to participate. Clinical audit consisted of retrospective case-note review for up to 40 individuals diagnosed with HIV per site during 2011 (index cases) and a review of PN outcomes for up to five contacts elicited by PN per index case.

    Results 169/221 (76%) clinical services participated (93% sexual health/HIV services, 7% infectious diseases/HIV units). Most (97%) delivered PN for HIV. Data were received regarding 2964 index cases (67% male; 50% heterosexual, 52% white). PN was attempted for 88% of index cases, and outcomes for 3211 contacts were audited (from an estimated total of 6400): 519 (16%) were found not to be at risk of undiagnosed HIV infection, 1399 (44%) were informed of their risk and had an HIV test, 310 (10%) were informed of the risk but not known to have tested and 983 (30%) were not informed of their risk of HIV infection. Of 1399 contacts tested through PN, 293 (21%) were newly diagnosed with HIV infection. Regular partners were most likely to test positive (p<0.001).

    Conclusions HIV PN is a highly effective diagnostic strategy. Non-completion of PN thus represents a missed opportunity to diagnose HIV in at-risk populations. Vigorous efforts should be made to pursue PN to identify people living with, and at risk of, HIV infection.

    • HIV
    • PARTNER NOTIFICATION
    • AUDIT
    • SERVICE DELIVERY
    • HIV TESTING

    https://doi.org/10.1136/sextrans-2015-052532

    Statistics from Altmetric.com

      Request Permissions

      If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

      View Full Text