Marseille 2007
| Abstract #16 - WHEN GOOD NEWS IS BAD NEWS: PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPACT OF FALSE POSITVE DIAGNOSIS OF HIV | ||||
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Session: 47.3: Ethics and Law (Parallel) on Wednesday @ 08.30-10.30 in Auditorium/Overflow Chaired by Susan Newcomer, Anjali Nayyar Authors: Presenting Author: Dr rahul bhattacharya - CNWL NHS Trust, United Kingdom |
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| Additional Authors: Dr Simon Barton, Dr Jose Catalan, | ||||
| Aim: To describe the psychological and social consequences of a false positive diagnosis of HIV, and review the literature to identify the likelihood of false positivity and its potential consequences. | ||||
| Method / Issue: Four individuals, who had been notified of their mistaken HIV positive status, were seen for clinical and legal advice and detailed information about their coping and psychological status was obtained. | ||||
| Results / Comments: The detailed description of the impact on four individuals, of the discovery that they had been misdiagnosed as HIV positive for several years, is reported. We attempted to keep their identity anonymous. The four individuals included two heterosexual women, one heterosexual man and one gay man. All had been misdiagnosed as HIV positive when they were between nineteen and thirty-five years of age, and they had made a variable adjustment to their positive HIV status. The discovery of their accurate negative HIV status happened three to nine years after the original diagnosis, and it lead to a mixed pattern of psychological adjustment and psychiatric difficulties, which in some cases lasted for several years. The discovery led to medico-legal conflict with the medical advisors. | ||||
| Discussion: At a time when testing for HIV is becoming commonplace and there is increasing pressure on individuals to undergo tests, in view of advantages of early anti-retroviral treatment, it is important to be aware of the possibility of false positive results, and of their psychological and social implications. In the background of mass testing, potentially variable sensitivity and specificity of tests, the possibility and implications of both false positives and false negatives, need to be carefully considered. | ||||
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