In order to avoid disruption of the clinic’s flow, brief post-test counselling could be provided after the patient receives the preliminary result and more extensive counselling planned for the next consultation

when the patient find more returns for the confirmation result. Robust links between primary care and HIV specialist services are essential for immediate linkage to care for newly diagnosed patients in order to minimize loss to follow-up. Targeting testing at patients considered to be at high risk of HIV infection in line with World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) recommendations, as proposed by a majority of the study participants, would make selleck kinase inhibitor implementation cost-effective by reducing the number of tests required. The majority of participating GPs were aware of the existence of rapid HIV tests but did not know how to use them. Specific training in rapid HIV testing should be offered to Spanish GPs. Efforts have to be made to improve training in the provision of pre-test information

and post-test counselling and to improve skills in sexual history taking, in order to identify those patients at risk. Also, GPs should be made aware of missed opportunities for HIV testing and the necessity of their involvement in the early diagnosis of HIV infection. The principal limitations of this study are the opportunistic sampling design of the survey, making the results difficult to generalize to all Spanish GPs, and the low return rate for questionnaires. This response rate is, however, similar to that seen in other surveys of similar study populations and the sample size achieved is greater than in most comparable studies. It is also likely that the GPs who responded are those with a greater interest in HIV/AIDS and hence those most likely to take on board any changes in testing policy likely to have an impact on testing rates. In summary, early

HIV diagnosis and timely linkage to care should be one of the main strategies to both improve the prognosis of HIV-positive triclocarban patients and decrease the incidence of HIV infection in the community. In most settings, primary health care is a frontline service for people with symptoms of acute infection or at risk of HIV infection and other sexually transmitted infections. Our data demonstrate the openness of these professionals to introducing rapid HIV testing into primary health care and moreover identify the main barriers to doing so. According to our results, the introduction of rapid test technology in the primary health sector may be useful in increasing the number of test performed at this level.