HIV/AIDS

This article describes the need behind and the process used by nursing leaders from six sub-Saharan African countries who collaborated to develop the essential nursing competencies related to HIV and AIDS. [adapted from author]

Nursing leaders from six sub-Saharan African countries collaborated to develop the essential nursing competencies related to HIV and AIDS. These competencies can help to guide pre-service education related to HIV and AIDS, to strengthen in-service or capacity-building programs designed for already qualified nurses, and to guide policy and regulatory reform in the context of taskshifting, task-sharing, and scope of nursing practices. [from author]

This baseline assessment of HIV/AIDS service providers gathered information on productivity and engagement to develop a set of improved human resource practices that will be integrated into ongoing HIV service delivery. [adapted from summary]

This paper draws on experiences scaling-up antiretroviral treatment in three sub-Saharan African countries (Malawi, South Africa and Lesotho) and highlights the main opportunities and challenges posed by task shifting and proposes specific actions to tackle the challenges. [adapted from summary]

This issue of Contact has been published to give practical examples of how treatment can be made more accessible by faith-based organizations (FBOs) and FBO health care institutions particularly in resource-limited settings. [from author]

The shortage of human resources in health (HRH) in Africa remains severe and continues to be a major impediment to increasing coverage of HIV-related services. This eToolkit is meant to serve as a resource for those dealing with aspects of the HRH crisis, including individuals and organizations who wish to familiarize themselves with the various components of HRH, focusing primarily on Southern Africa. [adapted from author]

This study examines the issues, in the Ugandan context, with strategies to shift facility and community-based tasks to “expert patients,” clients who are recruited and trained to provide suport services for other clients in facilities and in communities. [adapted from summary]

The objective of this review was to ascertain if priority access to HIV and/or TB services should be provided to health care workers as well as whether workplaces should provide programs reducing stigma and/or discrimination for all health care workers. [from abstract]

This article describes 3 staff care programs that provide convenient, confidential, and holistic care for HIV-infected health care workers and health care workers affected by caring for HIV-infected patients. [from author]

In Zambia, a study was carried out with the aim to: explore the impact of HIV/AIDS on health workers, describe their coping mechanisms and recommend supportive measures. [from author]

Two studies were conducted to assess modes of male circumcision (MC) service delivery to support the scale-up of MC for HIV prevention in Kenya in the public sector. Both studies examined clinical outcomes of and client satisfaction for MC services provided through task shifting performed by nonphysician clinician and by trained itinerant clinical officers. [adapted from author]

This paper is a synthesis of research on recruitment and retention challenges for home support workers in Canada. [from author]

This article explored the lessons learned by health workers involved in the provision of prevention of mother-to-child transmission services in eastern Uganda to better understand what more needs to be done to strengthen the program. [adapted from abstract]

The impact of HIV-specific funds and programmes on non-HIV-related health services and health systems in genera has been debated extensively. Drawing on evidence from Malawi and Ethiopia, this article analyses the effects of ART scale-up interventions on human resources policies, service delivery and general health outcomes, and explores how synergies can be maximized. [from abstract]

To help support the introduction of adult maled circumcision (MC) for HIV prevention in Kenya, this study was conducted to gather information about the current MC policy and program environment regarding HRH planning to support adult MC scale-up in four districts in Kenya. [from author]

This paper describes the evaluation of a tailored HIV curriculum for village AIDS committees (VACs) within a rural area to determine if the curriculum increased levels of HIV knowledge among the VAC members through conducting baseline and post-training surveys. [adapted from author]

The Twubakane Gender-Based Violence/Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV Readiness Assessment is a toolkit to assess the readiness of service providers, service facilities, the community and the policy environment to respond to gender-based violence at antenatal care/prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV service sites and in the community. Each file is a downloadable MS Word document, in English or French, that can be customized for the user’s location. [from publisher]

Human resource shortages are viewed as one of the primary obstacles to provide effective services to growing patient populations receiving antiretroviral therapy and explanding access further. This article examined the relationship of patient volume, human resource levels, and patient characteristics with attrition from HIV treatment programs in central Mozambique. [adapted from abstract]

The aim of this paper is to show that present provider-centred models of chronic care are not adequate and to propose full self-management as an alternative for low-income countries, facilitated by expert patient networks and smart phone technology. [from abstract]

The aim of this paper is to explore the challenges generated by HIV care and treatment and their impact on health worker motivation in Mbeya Region, Tanzania. [from abstract]

This article set out to examine the human resource policy implications of scaling up HIV testing and counselling in Kenya and to analyse the resultant policy against a recognised theoretical framework of health policy reform. [from abstract]

The guidelines were conceived to help envision, plan, design, implement, evaluate and scale up initiatives that involve collaborating with traditional healers for HIV prevention and care in sub-Saharan Africa. The ultimate goal of this effort is to improve access to, and quality of, health services for the clients of both systems. [from author]

In South Africa, limited human resources are a major constraint to achieving universal antiretroviral therapy (ART) coverage. Decentralization or “down-referral” (wherein ART patients deemed stable on therapy are referred to their closest Primary Health Clinics (PHCs) for treatment follow-up) is being used as a possible alternative of ART delivery care. This cross-sectional qualitative study investigates attitudes towards down-referral of ART delivery care among patients currently receiving care in a centralized tertiary HIV clinic. [from abstract]

This guide aims to assist policymakers, health workers, and civil society organizations understand health stigma and discrimination and identify the ways in which each can work to combat their expression. [from introduction]

This article presents factors that influenced the implementation of a capacity building assistance program in the U.S. Affiliated Pacific Island jurisdictions that worked with health professionals to develop local organizational and clinical HIV capacity. It also evaluates the program to understand the contextual factors affecting the delivery of services. [adapted from introduction]

To improve clinician ability to recognize HIV and understand treatment, Hawai’s AIDS Education and Training Center developed innovative ways of training and building capacity. This is a report of the program and the experiences with these clinicians. [adapted from introduction]

Task shifting and the integration of HIV care into primary care services have been identified as possible strategies for improving access to antiretroviral treatment. This paper describes the development and content of an intervention involving these two strategies. [from abstract]

This study evaluates outcomes of a dedicated health care worker HIV clinic in Malawi against the perceptions, levels of awareness and barriers for uptake to care for health care workers attending the general HIV clinic. [from abstract]

The authors conducted a cluster randomized trial to assess the effect of community-based peer health workers on AIDS care of adults in Rakai, Uganda. [from abstract]

This paper examines the case of South Africa, where there has been rapid growth of a range of lay workers (home-based carers, lay counselor, DOT supporters etc.) principally in response to an expansion in budgets and programmes for HIV, most recently the rollout of antiretroviral therapy. [from author]