title: The Italian AIDS 'hot-line': providing information to the people.
abstract: The Italian AIDS hot-line has recently completed its first two operational years. Established as an emergency service, it was initially overloaded with calls, under the emotional impact of a new disease. As the average number of calls settled to around a hundred per day, a wider approach aimed at the concerns raised by callers has been possible. A particular effort has been made to handle psychological and social aspects of HIV infections. A large proportion of the questions analyzed (62,500) deal with doubts about transmission (30%), reliability of diagnostic tests (15%), and handling individual situations. Some categories of callers, such as drug users, parents or relatives of HIV-infected people, and seropositives often require experienced telephone counselling. HIV-positive callers follow the proportional distribution of AIDS cases in Italy: intravenous drug users forming the majority, followed by homosexuals and finally heterosexual subjects (reaching 10%, a value in accordance with trend projections). The demand for advice has increased over time, together with an evident refinement of question content.
authors.affiliation: Centro Operativo AIDS (AIDS Operational Centre), Istituto Superiore di Sanità (National Institute for Health) Roma, Italy.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Benedetti
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zaccarelli
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Giuliani
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Di Fabio
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Valdarchi
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Pezzotti
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tumbarello
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Greco
mesh_terms: D000163:Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology* / Q000635:transmission; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003219:Confidentiality; D005260:Female; D015277:Hotlines / Q000458:organization & administration; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors