Survey shows AIDS hotlines not always accurate. (32nd Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy)

ICAAC

AIDS hotlines often give out information that's misleading, oversimplified - or just plain wrong, a survey has found.

"They actually generate a lot of anxiety, although overall they probably do more good than not," said Dr. Stephen Gluckman of Cooper Hospital in Camden, New Jersey, who directed the survey.

In the survey, drama students called 33 hotlines pretending to be people infected with HIV or people who were well but worried. The answers they got varied widely.

Gluckman attributed the poor advice to haphazard training and often nonexistent counseling experience among the volunteers who staff the hotlines, which are …