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RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

Patient-centred approaches to providing care at HIV diagnosis: perspectives from healthcare and peer-support workers

Nathanael Wells https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2827-8480 A * , Garrett Prestage A , Dean Murphy https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2752-7091 A , Nicholas Medland https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0403-8930 A , Limin Mao B , Chris Howard C , Christopher Fairley https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9081-1664 D E , Graham Brown F and Steven P. Philpot on behalf of the RISE Study Team A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Kirby Institute, University of NSW, Sydney, NSW, Australia.

B Centre for Social Research in Health, University of NSW, Sydney, NSW, Australia.

C Queensland Positive People (QPP), Brisbane, Qld, Australia.

D Alfred Health, Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, Melbourne, Vic., Australia.

E Central Clinical School, Monash University, Melbourne, Vic., Australia.

F Centre for Social Impact, University of NSW, Sydney, NSW, Australia.

* Correspondence to: nwells@kirby.unsw.edu.au

Handling Editor: Jami Leichliter

Sexual Health 19(5) 448-455 https://doi.org/10.1071/SH22052
Submitted: 1 April 2022  Accepted: 21 June 2022   Published: 22 July 2022

© 2022 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Background: Early uptake of HIV treatment among those newly diagnosed with HIV can improve individual health and prevent onward transmission. Patient-centred care is considered an important aspect in health care, the management of HIV, and can improve uptake of and adherence to HIV treatments.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with sexual health clinicians (n, 10) and HIV support workers (n, 4) to understand how they approached HIV diagnosis delivery and care immediately thereafter.

Results: Our thematic analysis identified three themes: (1) centring patient needs at diagnosis; (2) assessing patients’ readiness to begin treatment; and (3) referrals to psychosocial support services. Our findings highlight centring patients was an important aspect of how participants delivered HIV diagnoses. By taking this approach, clinicians were best able to consider patient readiness to initiate treatment and referrals to social support services.

Conclusions: Given HIV diagnoses are increasingly occurring in generalist health services, our findings offer an important opportunity to learn from the experiences of specialist sexual health clinicians and HIV support workers.

Keywords: clinician perspectives, HIV, HIV diagnosis, patient-centred care, peer support, sexual health, treatment initiation, qualitative.


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