"I'm sorry, you're positive": a qualitative study of individual experiences of testing positive for HIV.

New CDC guidelines for HIV testing as well as the introduction of rapid tests may increase the number of HIV tests conducted in the USA and make testing a more routine part of medical care. However, little is currently known about the experience of those receiving positive results. In this study, face-to-face interviews were conducted with 50 participants who had recently learned they were HIV positive in the San Francisco Bay Area.