title: Communicating HIV Results to Low-Risk Individuals: Still Hazy After All These Years.
abstract: Revised Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations on HIV testing now promote testing of most risk groups. However, positive results for low-risk individuals are more likely to be false positives than for high-risk individuals, making clear communication of test results even more imperative. In a study, we evaluated current counseling of low-risk test recipients via a sample of 29 HIV hotline counselors from U.S. state and national hotlines. 100% of counselors interviewed failed to provide an accurate conditional HIV risk for low-risk women, but were more likely than a 1998 German sample to report that false positives could occur. In a second study, undergraduates read idealized transcripts of interviews with HIV counselors and computed conditional risk for a low-risk individual. The natural frequency format offered a small but significant improvement in conditional reasoning, comparable to the effect of numerical literacy. Applications for ecologically valid numerical presentations of risk and implications for numeracy are discussed.
authors.affiliation: College of Psychology and Liberal Arts, Florida Institute of Technology, 150 W. University Blvd., Melbourne, FL 32901, USA. kat.m.ellis@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Katrina M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Ellis
authors.forename: Gary L
authors.initials: GL
authors.lastname: Brase
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001499:Bayes Theorem; D003142:Communication; D003376:Counseling / Q000592:standards*; D005260:Female; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000175:diagnosis*; D015277:Hotlines; D006801:Humans; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000592:standards; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D012306:Risk; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014481:United States