A woman comes to a community health clinic and expresses concern she may have been exposed to HIV. The community nurse draws blood for an ELISA test, which comes back as positive. The nurse should
ask the client to come into the clinic to tell her in person she is HIV positive.
request the client come in and follow up with a Western blot test.
explain to the client this shows she has been exposed to HIV, but does not have HIV.
call and tell client that she is HIV positive.
Number 2 is correct.
Rationale: The ELISA test is often the first test used for HIV screening. It can detect antibodies to HIV, and DNA/RNA of HIV in the blood. If the ELISA test is positive, further testing must be done, such as the Western blot test. Although false positives are rare, one positive ELISA test is not diagnostic of HIV. Because of possible HIPAA violation and the severity of the diagnosis, discussing HIV test results over the phone should not be done.
