Background: Increasing the uptake of HIV testing in people who may have undiagnosed HIV is essential to reduce the morbidity associated with late HIV diagnosis.
Methods: We conducted a multicentre, longitudinal, mixed-methods study, surveying the attitudes, knowledge and practice of non-HIV specialist hospital physicians in South-East Scotland and North-East England with respect to HIV testing.
Results: We found that although awareness of indications for HIV testing had improved over time, only 13% of clinicians recognised all of the surveyed HIV indicator conditions. Physicians were better at recognising the indicator conditions relevant to their specialty. The perception of working with a low-risk patient population was the most frequently cited barrier to offering an HIV test. Only a third of study respondents had requested more than 10 HIV tests in the preceding year.
Conclusions: Our study supports a need for targeted and sustained educational initiatives to increase rates of HIV testing in secondary care.
Keywords: HIV; HIV testing; indicator conditions.