A female patient is concerned after learning that a person, with whom she had a casual sexual encounter, has been diagnosed as being HIV positive. Which of the following should be explained to this patient?
1. An HIV positive status will manifest in a few months so all exposures will lead to disease.
2. Be sure to be tested in one month to see if the disease was transmitted to you.
3. An individual may be exposed to the virus but neither carry nor contract the disease.
4. I would not worry about it because you probably did not get enough of a viral load.
3
Rationale: There are three types of human-HIV relationships: exposure, carrier, and terminal disease. The nurse should explain to the patient how an individual may be exposed to the virus but neither carry nor contract the disease. Seroconversion takes from 6 to 14 months so suggesting that the patient be tested in one to a few months is incorrect. Successful transmission also requires a sufficient viral load; that is, the amount of virus that enters the blood. The nurse has no way of knowing the viral load the patient received during exposure and should not tell the patient not to worry about it.
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