S
upporting
Y
our
P
ractice
Arewe ready for
HIV screening indental clinics?
The following is an abstract of an article published in the ‘Debate and
Opinion’ section of
jcda.ca
—CDA’s online, open access scholarly publication
that features articles indexed inMedline, Journal CitationReports and
ScienceCitation Index.
MarioA.Brondani
DDS,MSc,MPH,PhD
Clinical Summary
In2011,a teamof researchers inBritishColumbiaassessedpeople’swillingness forHIV
screening indental settingsbyconductingapilotproject that introduced routine,dental-
provider-initiatedscreening inoneofVancouver’scommunitydental clinics.Wediscussed the
studywithDr.MarioA.Brondani,associateprofessorand interimdirectorof thecombined
MPH/dentalpublichealthgraduateprogramat theUniversityofBritishColumbia.
Whathypothesisdidyouwanttoexamine?
Considering thatmore than70,000Canadians livewithHIV, and that 20–25%of themare
unawareof their status andpotentially infectious,wewanted toexaminewhether Canadians
are ready forHIV screening indental clinics. The idea is tooffer such screening inalternative
settings formoreCanadians tohaveaccess toearlydiagnosis to reduce transmission,while
being linked toappropriatedcare.
Whatare1or2keyfindingsofyourstudy?
Weconductedapilot studyover approximately3months,which includedonlyonedental
clinicofferingfinger-prickHIV screening. Resultshave tobe interpretedwithin this context.
That said, someof the keyfindings included:
• HIVpoint-of-care testing indental settings (in this casedoneby thedentist) seemed to
bewell acceptedby thepatients inconcept (
Table1
), but thegeneralmindset has to
change for screening tobecomea routineprocedure.
Table1:
Distributionof agreement levelsaccording togender asper the statement
“diagnosingHIV ispartof adentists’ job” (
n
=154).
HIV screening ispartofdental care
Gender
SA,A (
n
=120)
SD,D (
n
=34)
p
value*
Male
(
n
=126)
96
30
0.118
Female
(
n
=28)
24
4
SA
:stronglyagree,
A
:agree;
D
:disagree,
SD
:stronglydisagree
*pvalue:Fisherexacttest.
StevenM.Chang
DDS
31
Volume2 Issue7
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