Objectives: Pre-exposure chemoprophylaxis “PrEP”, a new prevention tool against HIV for high-risk populations, has been available in France since 2016 in France. The first prescription should occur in CeGIDD or hospital and, its renewal and follow-up can be made by the GP. The analysis of barriers to prescribing PrEP and its follow-up by GP is essential to guide public health actions in order to reach the objectives necessary to observe an inflection of new HIV contaminations.
Methods: In this descriptive study, on general practitioners who were surveyed about their opinions and current practices of PrEP on the French territory from August to October 2018.
Results: 351 responded to the survey, with an estimated response rate of 11%. Most clinicians (88.9%) supported PrEP but only 6.3% had provided it and 12.8% of them did PrEP monitoring. The non-providers self-assessed for 97% of them, as their knowledge of PrEP was low or very low. The significant barriers to providing PrEP among non-adopters were the lack of training received (90.6% vs 59,1% for adopters, P < 0.001), the assessment of patient as “not at risk for HIV” (29.8% vs 0%, P = 0.003), not having a private health assurance (34.7% vs 13.6%, P = 0.04), the lack of knowledge about patient sexuality (27.1% vs 4.5%, P = 0.02). The absence of a first prescription was a barrier only for PrEP follow-up and was over-represented in this group (33.3% vs 18.3% for non-adopters, P = 0.02).
Conclusion: This study shows that GPs are interested in providing PrEP despite their barriers. The management of PrEP in general practice must be improved, particularly through the training of general practitioners in the context of continuing medical education and by an institutional evolution in the extension of provide PrEP to increase the interest in global health management to overcome these barriers.