title: Referral of intravenous drug users for antiviral treatment: effectiveness of hepatitis C case-finding programmes.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Hepatitis C infection (HCI) case-finding programmes aim to identify infected persons in a well-defined population. This study assessed the effectiveness of three HCI case-finding programmes for intravenous drug users by examining the rate of their referral to antiviral treatment.
  
  
  METHODS
  The Hepatology Outpatient Clinic of Szent László Hospital examines and treats all intravenous drug users who are found positive in HCI case-finding programmes in Budapest. The medical records of patients who visited the Hepatology Outpatient Clinic of Szent László Hospital between 1 January 2006 and 31 December 2008 were screened and records indicating a history of drug abuse were selected. These records were matched against the databases of the hepatitis case-finding programmes and the records that appeared in both datasets were analyzed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of the 234 intravenous drug users identified as hepatitis C virus positive in the Budapest case-finding programmes, only 21 attended the Hepatology Outpatient Clinic of Szent László Hospital and only two started antiviral treatment, but their hepatitis C virus positive status had already been known at the time of screening.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In this study, not a single patient with drug abuse whose hepatitis C virus positive status was identified in one of the HCI case-finding programmes was referred for antiviral treatment.
authors.affiliation: Consultation-Liaison Psychiatric Service, Szent István and Szent László Hospitals, Budapest, Hungary. gazdag@lamb.hu
authors.forename: Gábor
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Gazdag
authors.forename: Gergely
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Horváth
authors.forename: Olga
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Szabó
authors.forename: Gabor S
authors.initials: GS
authors.lastname: Ungvari
mesh_terms: D000998:Antiviral Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D015438:Health Behavior; D006296:Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006526:Hepatitis C / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D006814:Hungary / Q000453:epidemiology; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012017:Referral and Consultation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015819:Substance Abuse, Intravenous / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000628:therapy
chemical_list: D000998:Antiviral Agents