When family practitioners treat HIV, their overall experience with HIV-positive patients is strongly tied to the quality of their care, Medscape reports. Publishing their findings in The Annals of Family Medicine, researchers retrospectively analyzed data from a population-based observational study of 13,417 people with HIV, conducted in Ontario, Canada, between April 2009 and March 2012.

Just over half (52.8 percent) of the HIV-positive individuals saw a family practitioner exclusively for their HIV care. Those whose family practitioners had fewer HIV-positive patients were much less likely to receive treatment for the virus than those whose family physicians had more patients with HIV. Thirty-four percent of those whose family physicians had five or fewer patients with HIV were taking antiretrovirals, compared with 40 percent of those whose family physicians had 6 to 49 patients with HIV, and 77 percent of those whose family doctors had at least 50 HIV-positive patients.

To read the study, click here.

To read the Medscape article, click here.