Intervening to Reduce Risk - Promoting STI Testing course for GPs

This is the third of four complementary sessions on behavioural and clinical interventions to reduce the risk of patients having, or developing in the future, sexual health problems. The three patients in this session have a range of needs, however all of them might benefit from having an STI or HIV test. We also consider the issue of time management. This session has been written in conjunction with Sexual Health in Practice (SHIP). Please see acknowledgements for more details.

This session was reviewed by Khyati Bakhai and last updated in June 2020.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this session you will be able to:

• Identify a patient's sexual health risk
• Formulate management plans that take into account identified risks and prioritised needs of individual patients
• Recognise the value of promoting infection testing both as a clinical and a health promotion intervention
• Assess your understanding of the time it takes to identify and respond to a patient's sexual health risk and how risk assessment supports effective use of time

The last session showed that by completing a risk assessment, we have a much better sense of the priorities for the health and management of our individual patients.