ABSTRACT
Background & Objectives: HIV counselling and testing services are a key entry point to prevention of HIV infection, and to treatment and care of people who are infected with HIV. In Gujarat at present 308 ICTC are functioning out of them 19 are functioning in Bhavnagar District. ICTC team training produce skilled personnel who can identify their client problems, are well informed and can provide high quality HIV related services so the objective of this study is to study knowledge regarding HIV/AIDS & Counselling amongst staff of ICTC running in Bhavnagar District. Methods: This was a cross sectional study conducted among participant of ICTC team Training during April 2011-May 2011. Results: The knowledge of participant regarding HIV/AIDS and Counselling aspects improved significantly after intervention. Interpretation & Conclusion: The informative & educable intervention definitely has a positive effect on awareness levels which would eventually encourage expansion of knowledge & help in improve the skill of counselling and positive attitude towards the client coming at different ICTC centre and increase the service utilization by client so this type of inductive training for newly appointed health care workers and refresher training for health workers, who employed longer than one year should be organized on regular basis for effectively utilization of ICTC.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: Objective of this study was to determine the level of knowledge about tuberculosis among patients registered in district tuberculosis center, Bhavnagar. METHODS: A community based cross-sectional study was carried out among New Pulmonary Tuberculosis patients registered in District Tuberculosis Centre, Bhavnagar during 1st January, 2009 to 30th April, 2009. Data collection was carried out between 1/05/2009 to 30/06/09 at 144 patients’ house with help of pre-tested structured questionnaire which comprised of socio-demographic variables and variables to assess the knowledge about tuberculosis. RESULTS: In our study, majority of the patients were male (70.1%) with the most commonly involved age group of 21 to 30 years (30.6%). Nearly one-third (31.9%) of the respondents were illiterate and 44% had received primary education. Only 6.9% of study subjects had correct knowledge about the cause of the disease. Knowledge regarding major symptoms was found in only 47% & knowledge about mode of transmission was found in only 30.6% of respondents. Majority of the respondents (97.2%) have a correct knowledge about the duration of treatment of Tuberculosis. CONCLUSION: In this study, majority of study subjects had poor knowledge about cause of tuberculosis, its mode of transmission & major symptoms while knowledge regarding the duration of treatment was found better among most of the respondents. Proper knowledge and education about tuberculosis is vital to cope the challenge of this devastating disease. DTC, being the main center providing treatment, can play a critical role to raise knowledge among the patients about tuberculosis & its prevention.