Management

Jane Tomnay: Centre for Excellence in Rural Sexual Health, The University of Melbourne  Summary  Partner Notification is important to:   alert partners of their risk of contracting HIV and encourage them to seek testing.  provide an opportunity for prophylaxis, testing and treatment if required   prevent unwanted long-term sequelae.  prevent inadvertent onward transmission.  Partner Notification can be undertaken …

Partner notification and contact tracing Read More »

Healthcare providers who diagnose a person with HIV should ensure that they discuss the need for partner notification with that person.  If a person is diagnosed with HIV, then they have acquired their infection from another person, and possibly transmitted it to subsequent partners.  Consideration of transmission risk in people who have HIV infection should …

Why is partner notification important? Read More »

The index case is a person newly diagnosed with HIV.  The healthcare provider must raise with this person the possibility of notifying their partners of their risk and encouraging the partner/s to test.  Partner notification is completely dependent on the index person being prepared to discuss the matter and to identify partners who have been …

What is the meaning of ‘index case’? Read More »

Patient referral:  the index patient informs the partner/s of their risk and encourages them to undertake HIV testing and/or HIV prophylaxis, if appropriate.  Provider referral: a healthcare provider informs the partner/s of their risk of HIV whilst maintaining the confidentiality of the index person and encourages the partner/s to undertake HIV testing.  Conditional referral:  a …

Methods of partner notification Read More »

Patient referral is by far the most used partner notification strategy in Australia. In this circumstance, it is important that healthcare providers discuss with the index person how they are going to carry out partner notification and determine the best time to do it.  It is helpful to discuss different scenarios with the index person so …

Patient referral: how does this work in the clinical setting? Read More »

The index person may ask a healthcare provider to take on the responsibility of informing their sexual partner/s of the need for them to seek HIV testing.  Experienced healthcare providers with a good understanding of HIV and who use sensitivity and a person-centred approach in their practice should be able to discuss partner notification with …

Provider referral: how does this work in the clinical setting? Read More »

This strategy is used when the index person agrees to contact their partners in the first instance but that they may also need to pass the task onto the healthcare provider after an agreed period if they have been unsuccessful.