title: Overview of a gay men's STI/HIV testing clinic in Ottawa: clinical operations and outcomes.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To 1) create a space where men who have sex with men (MSM) feel comfortable accessing sexually transmitted infection/human immunodeficiency virus (STI/HIV) testing, and 2) reduce STI/HIV incidence.
  
  
  METHODS
  Gay men in Ottawa and its surrounding regions.
  
  
  METHODS
  A preponderance of diagnoses of sexually transmitted infections and HIV continue to occur among MSM. Meanwhile, other literature identifies that many MSM are reluctant to access STI/HIV testing services or to disclose their sexual practices to primary care practitioners.
  
  
  METHODS
  In Ottawa, in an effort to surmount these issues and decrease STI/HIV incidence among MSM, the local public health unit in collaboration with community partners created "GayZone", a three-hour-per-week STI/HIV testing and STI treatment clinic for gay men. In this paper, we report on the uptake and STI/HIV diagnosis outcomes for this clinic from January 2010 through December 2013.
  
  
  RESULTS
  GayZone is a well-utilized clinic that yields a number of STI/HIV diagnoses per year. Overall, the positivity rates of the STI/HIV tests at this clinic are above-average, although lower than what might be expected by local epidemiological data. While the results of this clinic validate anonymous HIV testing, they bring into question the utility of pharyngeal swabs to test for gonorrhea and chlamydia.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results of our study demonstrate the utility of a gay men's STI/HIV testing clinic and highlight some areas for improvement. Public health practitioners, frontline clinicians, and community workers in other regions who wish to implement such an STI/HIV clinic would do well to consider our results beforehand.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Health Sciences School of Nursing University of Ottawa. pjobyrne@uottawa.ca.
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: O'Byrne
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: MacPherson
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ember
authors.forename: Marie-Odile
authors.initials: MO
authors.lastname: Grayson
authors.forename: Andree
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bourgault
mesh_terms: D002170:Canada / Q000453:epidemiology; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D018451:Homosexuality, Male / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D011314:Preventive Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D012749:Sexually Transmitted Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control
keywords: Clinical services; HIV; MSM; gay men; public health; sexually transmitted infections