Increased uptake of HIV screening following introduction of "opt out" testing and results by telephone

Rogstad et al 1 showed an increase both in the number of patients who were offered the HIV test and those who took the test following the use of a leaflet. We report the increased uptake rate of HIV testing since the introduction of “opt out” testing and giving results by phone. Before January 2002, patients attending our clinic were offered an HIV test if they belonged to high risk groups such as men who have sex with men or injecting drug users. Pretest counselling was done by our health advisers and patients were required to return to the clinic to receive their test results. In 2001, 904 of 2930 new …