Table 1 Attitudes towards genital herpes (GH) among doctors and patients and by patient characteristics (% = agree somewhat and strongly agree)

Attitudinal statement	Doctors(n = 151)	Patients(n = 400)	p Value	Patient characteristics
				Years since diagnosis					Outbreaks past 12 months
				0–1(n = 40)	2–4(n = 50)	5–10(n = 100)	11+(n = 209)		0(n = 138)	1–2(n = 142)	3–5(n = 77)	6+(n = 43)
				A	B	C	D		E	F	G	H
Emotional impact of GH (%)
I was very upset when I was first diagnosed with GH	99	89	<0.001	95	94	89	87		91	87	90	91
I have learned to live with my GH	85	86		73	86	83	89	A<D	88	89	86	70	E>H
I would do anything to get rid of my GH	92	85	<0.01	90	92	93	78		79	86	87	93	E<H
I would never tell my friends that I have GH	NA	70		63	76	74	67		68	66	75	74
I feel very embarrassed about having GH	96	67	<0.001	88	82	69	59	A>CD	59	66	74	84	E<GH
I am very upset about having GH	97	65	<0.001	78	76	70	57	A>D	59	60	74	84	E<GH
I constantly worry about having the next outbreak	75	38	<0.001	58	52	44	27	A>D	29	35	47	58	E<GH
Having GH is not a big deal	9	33	<0.001	30	32	30	35		39	37	29	9	E>H
Transmission risk (%)
I can handle the outbreaks of GH, it’s the risk of transmitting the virus that really troubles me	62	83	<0.001	88	70	82	85		82	85	86	72
I think condoms are very effective in preventing someone from getting GH	93	60	<0.001	63	56	60	61		66	61	60	40	E>H
I believe GH can be totally controlled by treating each outbreak	67	57	<0.05	73	62	60	52	A>D	67	57	52	33	E>GH
I am constantly worried that I might pass GH to my sexual partner	87	56	<0.001	78	60	64	47	A>D	49	57	61	67	E<H
Having GH has restricted my sex life a lot	NA	51		58	50	52	50		41	51	62	65	E>H
I have not changed my sexual practice since the diagnosis of GH	NA	37		30	40	45	33		42	33	36	33
I am totally comfortable telling a new sexual partner that I have GH	NA	37		33	30	37	39		36	45	27	30

Statements reflect wording posed to patients. For doctor statements “I” was replaced with “most patients” for all statements except the second last statement which read “I feel completely comfortable discussing GH with my patients”. Both GH patients and doctors were asked to indicate their agreement with each statement using the following scale: “agree strongly, agree somewhat, disagree somewhat, disagree strongly”. Independent sample t-tests (assuming unequal variances) were performed to test for significant differences between: (a) doctors and patients, (b) patients diagnosed within 0–1 years versus patients who had been diagnosed 2–4 years ago, 5–10 years ago or 11 or more years ago and (c) patients with zero outbreaks in the past year versus those experiencing one to two, three to five or six or more outbreaks in the past year.
Differences by patient characteristics noted if significant at p<0.05.