Feasibility and acceptability of point of care HIV testing in community outreach and GUM drop-in services in the North West of England: A programmatic evaluation

BMC Public Health

Research Article

Caryl Beynon¹  Penelope Phillips-Howard¹  Vida Spaine²  Miriam Taegtmeyer²  Peter MacPherson³  Kathy Jones⁴  Pauline Jelliman⁵  Emer Coffey⁶  Ian Harrison⁶  Anu Chawla⁷ 

[1] Centre for Public Health, Liverpool John Moores University, 15-21 Webster Street, L3 2ET, Liverpool, UK;Clinical Group, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Pembroke Place, L3 5QA, Liverpool, UK;Clinical Group, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Pembroke Place, L3 5QA, Liverpool, UK;Wellcome Trust Tropical Centre, University of Liverpool, Pembroke Place, L69 3GF, Liverpool, UK;Liverpool Centre for Sexual Health, Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust, Prescot Street, L7 8XP, Liverpool, UK;Liverpool Community Health NHS Trust, Wilkinson Place, L13 1FB, Liverpool, UK;Liverpool NHS Primary Care Trust, 1 Arthouse Square, L1 4AZ, Liverpool, UK;The Liverpool Specialist Virology Centre, Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust, Prescot Street, L7 8XP, Liverpool, UK;

关键词: Service Provider;    Focus Group Discussion;    Homeless People;    Laboratory Confirmatory Testing;    Steer Group Meeting;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2458-11-419

 received in 2011-01-15, accepted in 2011-06-01,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundIn Liverpool, injecting drug users (IDUs), men-who-have-sex-with-men (MSM) and UK Africans experience a disproportionate burden of HIV, yet services do not reach out to these groups and late presentations continue. We set out to: increase testing uptake in targeted marginalized groups through a community and genitourinary medicine (GUM)-based point of care testing (POCT) programme; and conduct a process evaluation to examine service provider inputs and document service user perceptions of the programme.MethodsMixed quantitative, qualitative and process evaluation methods were used. Service providers were trained to use fourth generation rapid antibody/antigen HIV tests. Existing outreach services incorporated POCT into routine practice. Clients completed a semi-structured questionnaire and focus group discussions (FGDs) were held with service providers.ResultsBetween September 2009 and June 2010, 953 individuals underwent POCT (GUM: 556 [59%]; community-based sites: 397 [42%]). Participants in the community were more likely to be male (p = 0.028), older (p < 0.001), of UK African origin (p < 0.001) and IDUs (p < 0.001) than participants from the GUM clinic. Seventeen new HIV diagnoses were confirmed (prevalence = 1.8%), 16 of whom were in risk exposure categories (prevalence: 16/517, 3.1%). Questionnaires and FGDs showed that clients and service providers were supportive of POCT, highlighting benefits of reaching out to marginalised communities and incorporating HIV prevention messages.ConclusionsCommunity and GUM clinic-based POCT for HIV was feasible and acceptable to clients and service providers in a low prevalence setting. It successfully reached target groups, many of whom would not have otherwise tested. We recommend POCT be considered among strategies to increase the uptake of HIV testing among groups who are currently underserved.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© MacPherson et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011