Primary Care Guidelines for the Management of Herpes

The quality and standard of care available to people with genital herpes seems to vary enormously, particularly within primary care. Primary care physicians, otherwise known as GPs or family doctors, are normally the first point of contact for people with suspected herpes. Primary care physicians, therefore, need to be well informed and well equipped to offer the best treatment advice and support available.

To help raise the standard of care for herpes patients the International Herpes Management Forum (IHMF) developed a set of management guidelines known as “Pathways of care for managing genital herpes”. Produced by a team of experts, they have been developed as diagrams or treatment algorithms, making them as easy to follow as possible.

Three separate algorithms exist for the following scenarios:

The guidelines help to interpret and assess each individual patient’s symptoms, provide options for appropriate treatment, advise when a referral to a specialist should be considered and when re-evaluation or follow-up is necessary. Importantly, the guidelines specify the need for education, patient information and counselling.

A checklist gives the key points to consider when counselling patients about herpes. This was produced to prompt physicians into covering the most common concerns and key issues surrounding a diagnosis.

Click here to see copies of the guidelines and the checklist.

Any patient who is concerned or unhappy with how his or her condition is currently managed could consider printing off a copy of these guidelines for discussion with their physician.

Provided below is a list of books, research papers, textbooks and web resources dealing with a wide range of herpes-related issues to help you find the best information currently available. If you know of any other resources that have not been included here that you feel would be of value to other visitors, please e-mail the webmaster with your suggestions.