ABSTRACT
Introduction : HIV is a global pandemic and has been a serious concern for public health among individuals and communities. Measuring client satisfaction can help the country to carry out an evaluation of the health service system as well as, clients can develop a long-lasting relationship with the service provider. Objectives: 1) To assess the client satisfaction by the services provided at the Integrated Counselling and Testing Centre at the Rural Hospital, Panvel. 2) To provide recommendations to improve the services provided at the Integrated Counselling and Testing Centre. Method: A descriptive, cross- sectional, facility-based study was conducted in an Integrated Counselling and Testing Centre (ICTC) at a Rural Hospital, Panvel using simple random sampling technique. Exit interviews were conducted for three hundred clients after the required consent was obtained. Clients were stratified into pregnant and non- pregnant females. All clients above 18 years were included in the study however, clients not giving consent or severely ill were excluded. The data was analyzed using Microsoft Excel, and Epi Info Version 7.2. Results: Among 300 clients, 66% (198) of the clients belonged to the age group of 18-28 years and 54.3% (163) were literate. The study found that nearly74% (222) of the clients were referred and about 71.7% (215) clients were unsatisfied with the ICTC services. Conclusion: Majority of the clients were unsatisfied with the services provided at ICTC. Literate clients were more unsatisfied as compared to illiterate clients.It is further recommended that the counsellors at ICTCs should spend more time with the clients and tere should be a mandatory requirement of female counsellors.
ABSTRACT
Background: HIV infection is a major public health problem as it has dramatically increased the global burden of disease. HIV infected patients experience a variety of clinical signs and symptoms. Aims & Objective: Our objective was to study the profile of clinical features and opportunistic infections in HIV infected patients attending a tertiary care medical college hospital in Hassan, Karnataka. Material and Methods: A total of 124 HIV infected patients attending the ART Centre and the ICTC of Hassan Institute of Medical Sciences, Hassan, Karnataka were enrolled in the study, after obtaining informed consent. Clinical symptoms were recorded by direct questioning. Documented opportunistic infections were noted from patient records. Results: 80 (64.5%) HIV positive patients were males and 44 (35.5%) females. Mean age of the patients was 36.5 ± 6.0 years. The common symptoms were lethargy and fatigue 90 (72.5%), prolonged fever 86 (69.3%), weakness 84 (67.7%), body-ache and joint pain 84 (67.7%), loss of appetite 82 (66.1%), weight loss 80 (64.5%), cough (44.5%), chronic diarrhoea 68 (54.8%) and Nausea and Vomiting 64 (51.6%).The overall proportion of symptomatic patients was significantly higher than the number with etiologically documented opportunistic infections (41.9%). Pulmonary tuberculosis (37.9%) was the most frequently documented opportunistic infection. Conclusion: Affordable high quality laboratory diagnostic facilities for the diagnosis of opportunistic infections under the public health program will help to obtain an accurate picture of the range of opportunistic infections in HIV patients in India.