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An audit of knowledge, attitude and sexual practise of HIV positive patients in Beaumont Hospital.

Background

This study explores the effectiveness of information provision in the HIV clinic in Beaumont Hospital, determining whether the patients understand the information provided and change their beliefs and practices as a result.

Methods

Patients were asked a series of questions in a structured interview. The information was then analysed on a population basis by ethnicity and viral load.

Results

684 questions were asked to ascertain the patient's knowledge of HIV transmission with an 82% (n=559) rate of correct answers. 72% (n=37) of those who had sex in the past year in this study stated that they had not had sex without a condom in that period.

Conclusions

There is room for improvement in knowledge of transmission in the clinic. An 8% gap existed between Irish patients (89%) and all other patients (81%) in the area of HIV transmission. The understanding that antiretroviral drugs can aid in preventing HIV transmission is lacking in many patients. Many patients have changed their sexual practices while attending the clinic to protect both themselves and their partners.

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This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

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McMahon, D., McConkey, S. An audit of knowledge, attitude and sexual practise of HIV positive patients in Beaumont Hospital.. BMC Proc 9 (Suppl 7), A8 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1186/1753-6561-9-S7-A8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1753-6561-9-S7-A8

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