Physician contact with and attitudes toward HIV-seropositive patients: Results from a national survey

The growing population of HIV-seropositives raises serious concerns about who will provide medical care to this group. This article presents the first national estimates of physician involvement in, and attitudes toward, the treatment of HIV-seropositive patients. Nearly 50% of the nonfederal patient care physicians in our nationally representative sample have treated at least one HIV patient, with an average of 6.7 such patients being treated per physician. Perceived responsibility to treat HIV-seropositive patients is uniformly strong across such physician and practice characteristics as specialty, years of experience, and practice type. However, there are pronounced differences in actual physician involvement along these dimensions.