An educational HIV pretest counseling video program for off-hours testing in the emergency department.
OBJECTIVE
Multiple barriers to traditional pretest HIV counseling make HIV testing difficult to accomplish in the emergency department setting in off hours. This study compares the educational effectiveness of a 10-minute pretest counseling video with the usual practice of a session with an HIV counselor.


METHODS
This was a prospective randomized controlled trial of adult patients presenting to the urgent care area of a busy inner-city hospital. Patients either viewed an HIV educational video or spoke with an HIV counselor for pretest counseling. The video was developed by 2 of the investigators (YC, MH) and covered essential educational elements for HIV testing, as required by the New York State Department of Health. All participants completed a measure of HIV knowledge after their intervention. An equivalence analysis was performed to assess whether the video was at least as good as counseling in terms of overall mean knowledge score.


RESULTS
Of 129 patients recruited for the study, 65 patients were randomized to the intervention and 64 patients to the control group. Five patients were unable to complete the study. The final analysis was based on 124 patients. Mean knowledge scores were higher in the intervention (85.3% versus 79.7%; 90% confidence interval for the difference 2.6% to 8.7%).


CONCLUSIONS
We conclude that the use of an educational video with an inner-city adult population was at least as effective as in-person pretest counseling in conveying information related to HIV testing.
Calderon
Yvette
Y
Department of Emergency Medicine, Jacobi Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA. ycal333@yahoo.com
Haughey
Marianne
M
Bijur
Polly E
PE
Leider
Jason
J
Moreno-Walton
Lisa
L
Torres
Sandra
S
Gennis
Paul
P
Bauman
Laurie J
LJ
D000328:Adult; D003376:Counseling / Q000379:methods*; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital; D005260:Female; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010353:Patient Education as Topic / Q000379:methods*; D011204:Poverty Areas; D011446:Prospective Studies; D014505:Urban Population; D014743:Videotape Recording