Oral Presentations Abstracts: RESULTS OF HIV AND STD TESTS: WHAT CONTRIBUTION OF INTERNET? WHAT ETHICAL ISSUES?

Abstract

View of Volume 66, Special Issue, September 2021

A specialized service for anonymous and free HIV and STD (sexual transmitted diseases) screening asked us, as a Clinical Ethics Centre, to reflect on the opportunity of making the results available to patients on the internet. Several options are possible: the provision might apply only to negative results or also to positive results, only for STD or also for HIV, to all patients or according to their own choice. In addition, if we consider that patients can manage alone the reception of their results, and to learn that they need to be treated, they might even choose to do the screening alone. 

Based on the caregivers’ appreciation of these issues (secretary, laboratory manager, nurses and physicians) and the work of the multidisciplinary clinical ethics group, this presentation will discuss:

- The ethical issues raised by these differtents possibilities. Do they contribute to a higher level of empowerment for patients? Do they constitute a benefit or a risk for either single patients or public health? What ethical considerations should ground the doctor-patient relationship in this context? 

- The impact of the use of the internet or other technological means of communication in medicine. In the specific case of sexual health, technology can question the particular status with which information related to HIV testing is processed.

Perhaps these new procedures might help to fight the stigma related to HIV by treating the result of the screening process like that of other STD.