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A Survey of SHEA Members on Universal Precautions and HIV Screening

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 June 2016

Patti J. Miller  and
Barry M. Farr
Patti J. Miller*
Affiliation:
Department of Medicine, University of Virginia Medical Center, Charlottesville, Virginia
Barry M. Farr
Affiliation:
Department of Medicine, University of Virginia Medical Center, Charlottesville, Virginia
*
PO Box 473, University of Virginia Medical Center, Charlottesville, VA 22908
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Extract

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have recommended that health care workers use appropriate barriers, referred to as universal precautions, to protect themselves against exposure to the blood and body fluids of all patients. The CDC has suggested that the use of universal precautions eliminates the need for the isolation category blood and body fluid precautions (BBFP). There has been discussion concerning the feasibility of applying these precautions to all patients. Tangential issues involving screening of all hospitalized patients and whether or not informed consent should be required before such testing occurs are also being debated.

The purpose of the current study was to survey those attending a meeting of The Society of Hospital Epidemiologists of America (SHEA) in October 1987 to determine their opinions on these issues and their hospitals' actual practices with regard to universal precautions, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) screening, and informed consent.

Type
Special Sections
Information
Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , April 1988 , pp. 163 - 165
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America 1988

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References

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