Resumen

Objective: To study the acceptability of rapid testing among patients attending emergency services and to estimate the HIV infection prevalence in that population. Methods: Two nurses offered oral rapid HIV test to patients aged 18 to 64 years attending the emergency department (ED) of Hospital de Mataró, who were able to provide consent for HIV testing. Exclusion criteria were self-reported HIV infection and inability to provide consent. The recruitment of participants was performed by a nurse after the patient triage. The sample calculated was 3,000 patients tested. Results: During the first 4 months of the pilot program, 1189 patients were offered the test. Of those, 89 refused (7.5%) and 1100 were tested. None of them obtained a reactive result. One patient, who was in the window period at the moment of testing, repeated the test 3 months later in the hospital HIV service, obtaining a positive result. Almost the half of people tested was men (49.4%), the median age was 38.5, 9.0% were immigrants and 33.4% had a previous HIV test. 74.1% thought rapid test is more comfortable than conventional test, and 68,5% preferred rapid test with oral fluid than with finger stick. 94.2% would recommend the test to a friend, and 96.4% thought that offer HIV testing in ED is appropriate. Conclusions: The preliminary results obtained show that rapid HIV screening in ED is acceptable and feasible, but hasn’t detected any positive. Therefore, these preliminary results do not support the implementation of HIV screening in emergency services.(Extraído del "Programme and abstract book " del congreso)