Development and Pilot Testing of a PHCI for Emergency Department Patients Who Decline Rapid HIV/ HCV Screening

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that emergency departments (EDs) and other health care facilities conduct HIV and HCV screening to identify and link to care those with undiagnosed infections. Screening for both infections in EDs is preferable due to: the shared overlap of some risk behaviors for HIV and HCV acquisition (e.g., drug use) the relatively high co-occurrence of these infections in some populations the more complex medical needs and worse sequelae for those co-infected, and efficiency. Although some EDs have experimented with dual HIV and HCV screening, best practices on how to conduct screening so as to maximize patient screening uptake have yet to be identified. In this pilot RCT, the investigators will examine the efficacy of the persuasive health communication intervention in convincing adult ED patients who decline rapid HIV/HCV screening to be tested for these infections. Adult ED patients who decline rapid HIV/HCV screening will be randomly assigned to the ED medical staff arm or the HIV/HCV counselor arm. Within each arm, participants further will be randomly assigned to receive the persuasive health communication intervention or to watch a CDC HIV/HCV testing brochures-based video. Following the intervention or control condition, all participants will be offered rapid HIV/HCV testing again.