Encuesta sobre la realización de las pruebas de detección de los anticuerpos anti-VIH en los laboratorios de Catalu？a

quality assurance of hiv testing is essential to correctly assess the hiv epidemic. to describe the characteristics of hiv testing and identify features that could be improved, a questionnaire on the quality of hiv tests was sent to catalan laboratories in 1998. the survey revealed variability in the procedures used by the participating laboratories when performing hiv tests. some of the laboratories were still performing incorrect activities such as identifying hiv specimens with specific labels, extracting new specimens for a second test to confirm diagnosis, or failing to guarantee the confidentiality of the results. the criteria for hiv testing should be standardized according to the purpose of the test and the prevalence of the infection in the population analyzed. this approach would improve the quality of the results of diagnostic tests, since the overall concept of quality includes the entire process (pre-test, test and post-test).