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

MacPherson, Peter ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0329-9613, Chawla, Anu, Jones, Kathy, Coffey, Emer, Spaine, Vida, Harrison, Ian, Jelliman, Pauline, Phillips-Howard, Penelope, Beynon, Caryl and Taegtmeyer, Miriam ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5377-2536 (2011) '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, Vol 11, :419.

Preview

Text Macpherson_Liverpool_POCT_2011.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (201kB)

Abstract

Background: In 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.
Methods: Mixed 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.
Results: Between September 2009 and June 2010, 953 individuals underwent POCT (GUM: 556 [59%]; communitybased
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.
Conclusions: Community 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.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/11/419
Subjects:	QY Clinical Pathology > QY 4 General works WA Public Health > Preventive Medicine > WA 110 Prevention and control of communicable diseases. Transmission of infectious diseases WC Communicable Diseases > Virus Diseases > Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. HIV Infections > WC 503.6 Prevention and control
Faculty: Department:	Groups (2002 - 2012) > Clinical Group
Digital Object Identifer (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-11-419
Depositing User:	Users 43 not found.
Date Deposited:	12 Jul 2011 11:14
Last Modified:	17 Jul 2020 10:57
URI:	https://archive.lstmed.ac.uk/id/eprint/2091

Statistics

View details

Actions (login required)

Edit Item