title: Is the addition of a standard HIV educational comment to virology laboratory reports effective in changing requesting behaviour?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  It is not known whether the addition of general educational comments to virology laboratory reports can influence the requesting behaviour of practitioners.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To establish if there is any change in requesting behaviour after the addition of a standard comment to virology laboratory reports highlighting the need to include HIV testing when investigating patients presenting with a glandular fever (GF)-like illness.
  
  
  METHODS
  A standard comment to encourage inclusion of HIV testing was added to all GF screening reports from April 2010. The proportion of GF screening samples with concomitant HIV test requests before and after the introduction of the standard comment were compared over a 1 year period.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A significant increase in concomitant HIV requests from 9.5% to 19.6% on GF screening samples from primary care practitioners was observed after the addition of the standard comment (p<0.0000001). This effect peaked at 5 months and although it waned, requests at one year were still higher than at baseline.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Addition of a general HIV educational comment to virology laboratory reports is effective in changing requesting behaviour.
authors: Department of Infectious Diseases, Guy's and St. Thomas' NHS Trust and King's College London School of Medicine, St. Thomas' Hospital, Westminster Bridge Road, London, UK. William.tong@gstt.nhs.uk
authors: C Y William
authors: CY
authors: Tong
authors: Siobhan
authors: S
authors: O'Shea
authors: Sara
authors: S
authors: Palmer
authors: Jess
authors: J
authors: Peck
authors: Murad
authors: M
authors: Ruf
mesh_terms: D019411:Clinical Laboratory Techniques; D005568:Forms and Records Control / Q000592:standards*; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006801:Humans; D007244:Infectious Mononucleosis / Q000821:virology; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000592:standards; D058007:Physicians, Primary Care / Q000523:psychology*; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians' / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data* / Q000639:trends