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Steven E. Locke, MD; Warner V. Slack, MD; Charles Safran, MD; Deborah J. Cotton, MD, MPH; Mark A. Popovsky, MD; Robert G. Hoff, MD
Harvard Medical School Boston, Mass

JAMA. 1993;269(12):1505-1506.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

In Reply.

—We thank Mr Wright and Dr Silberstein for their comments on the benefits of computer-based interviewing, although we do not agree that its validation is in an embryonic stage. Indeed, computer-based interviewing was described as early as 1966,¹ and studies of its utility have yielded positive findings, particularly with regard to the issue of patients' willingness to disclose information of a private and personal nature.²

Wright and Silberstein have called attention to the sensitivity and specificity of computer-based interviews in detecting HIV-related risk factors among prospective blood donors. We developed the computer-based interview because of the need to identify potential donors who have recently become infected with HIV but have not yet developed anti-HIV antibodies. These donors pose the greatest threat to the recipients of blood products because there is no blood test sensitive enough to guarantee their identification. (More than 99.98% of all HIV-infected donors . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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