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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.
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Background: Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) has emerged as one of most serious public health problem in the country. ICTC (integrated counseling and testing centre) provides a key entry point for the 'continuum of care in HIV/AIDS' for all segments of the population. This study was conducted to assess knowledge and awareness regarding HIV/AIDS among attendees of ICTC because awareness is only means to reduce prevalence of any disease in absence of availability of treatment and cure.Methods: The study was conducted among attendees of integrated counseling and testing centre who were visited at the centre for HIV testing. It was a cross-sectional, observational study and conducted at ICTC attached to Microbiology Department of Bundelkhand Medical College, Sagar.Results: Majority of study subjects (34.96%) had a relatively poor knowledge about HIV/AIDS. In spite of having awareness, the respondents had lack of complete knowledge about the root cause of HIV/AIDS and had misconceptions about the mode of transmission.Conclusions: Gender, education, residence, caste and socio-economic status showed the significant association with knowledge score regarding HIV/AIDS. IEC activities should be planned in local language incorporating locally derived data pertaining to various social norms, cultural beliefs and sensitivities of community.
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Background: The prevalence of HIV among the adult population has continued a steady decline at the national level from an estimated peak of 0.4% in 2000 down to 0.26% in 2015. The data generated by ICTC may provide important clues to understand the epidemiology of the disease in a specific area, as well as pattern of risk behavior of the population.Methods: The present retrospective record based cross sectional study was carried out at the ICTC Centre of SDM College of Medical Sciences and Hospital, Dharwad. Retrospective data for the past six years (2012-13 to 2017-18) on clients visiting the ICTC was collected from the ICTC registers.Results: A total of 45,066 clients attended the ICTC over a period of 6 years, among which 61.6% were females and 38.4% were males. Among the total females, 55% were antenatal mothers. Out of the total clients tested, 99.75% of clients underwent post-test counseling. Among the total clients, 669 were HIV sero-positive clients out of which majority (61.7%) were males. The total positivity rate was 1.48% among the ICTC attendees. 47 clients had co-infections with TB.Conclusions: The challenge is to increase access to and uptake of HIV testing priority. Intense IEC activities for behaviour change at grass root level populations should be encouraged.
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Background: The challenge is to make all HIV-infected people aware of their status so that they may prevent the transmission of HIV to others. Only 25–30% of the people who are HIV positive in India are aware of their HIV status. Guntur district has a high epidemic potential with established transmission among the general population. The objective of the study was to study the socio demographic profile and HIV positivity rates among clients visiting an Integrated Counselling and Testing Centre (ICTC).Methods: This descriptive study is based on secondary data from the records of the ICTC. The data is entered and analysed with MS Office Excel and EPI Info statistical package. Important findings were tested for statistical significance at 5% level of significance.Results: Of the 6940 clients attending the ICTC, 43.34% are antenatal women (HIV positivity of 0.27%). Of the rest, provider initiated clients are 94.02% (HIV positivity 4.38%) and client initiated 5.9% (HIV positivity 20%). The difference of HIV positivity is highly significant (p<0.000001). 61.1% of the clients were found to be between the ages 25 to 49 years. Among the client initiated, more women (7.4%) were seen to be attending the ICTC (p<0.05). High risk professions identified were hotel workers (7.3% HIV positive), local transport workers (6.01%) and petty business (6.22%). Housewives were found to have 3.2% HIV positivity.Conclusions: Self-referral to ICTC is still very poor. The epidemic is shifting to the general populations. HIV/AIDs education efforts aimed at the population in general must be increased.
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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.
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To the best of our knowledge, there are few reports on acquirement of medical skills of infection control using a scenario simulation program. We report the development of a education program using scenario-based simulation named Infection Control Training Course （ICTC）. The three main aims of this course are basic comprehension of standard precautions and contact precautions, acquirement of skills for wearing and removal of personal protective equipment （PPE）, and precise selection of PPE for various situations.<br>・For the materials and methods, 225 medical staff members taking part in the ICTC at TMU participated in the study. Investigations using a questionnaire about standard precaution, contact precaution and PPE selection were carried out for the pre-course and post-course of the day. In addition, the satisfaction level was evaluated using free score text.<br>・The return rates of the completed questionnaire for investigating these areas were 88.4% （pre-course） and 95.1% （post-course）. Among all the items investigated, improvements were verified statistically （Wilcoxon signed-rank test）. The satisfaction level was 94.7 ± 9.4 points.<br>・In conclusion, the ICTC was considered to be effective for acquiring medical skills of infection control, particularly basic comprehension regarding standard precaution, contact precaution and precise PPE selection using a scenario simulation program.
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Background: HIV/AIDS has turned out into global pandemic. In India under National AIDS Control Program (NACP) –III Integrated Counseling and Testing Centers (ICTC) were established throughout the country for providing prevention services through a holistic approach for all segments of the population. Objectives: To study the sociodemographic profile and risk behavior pattern of clients diagnosed HIV positive in the ICTC. Material & method: Study Design: Cross-sectional study (record based) Setting: Mediciti Institute of Medical Sciences, Andhra Pradesh. Subjects- All the 448 seropositive attendees during the year 2007-2010. Data pertaining to total 8845 clients, who availed the services from the ICTC during the above period was assessed for the time trend of HIV infection .Study Variables- Year of reporting, in-referral of the clients, age, sex, educational status, marital status, occupation and pattern of risk behavior in relation to HIV/AIDS. Statistical analysis- Data was analyzed in SPSS version 17.0 . Results: HIV prevalence was found to be declining over the last 4 years, except in 2008. Among the seropositives 62.7% were males and 37.3% were females. 85% were in the reproductive age group 78.1% were married;53.1% were illiterates. Majority of them are labourers from the agricultural background and housewives. In 83.9% of the individuals it is acquired through unprotected heterosexual intercourse. Conclusion- These findings should call for greater introspection among the program managers and facilitate for more customized local planning involving various stakeholders.
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ICTCs provide a critical entry point for prevention, care and support for both people affected by HIV/AIDS and general population. The study was conducted with the objective of evaluating ICTCs in terms of infrastructure and staffing, services provided, level of utilization and quality of counselling. The structure and process evaluation of 13 ICTCs under National AIDS control programme III (NACP III) was carried out in a Coastal District of South India. The evaluation was carried out using UNAIDS Tools between July and September of 2010. Twelve out of 13 ICTCs (92%) had adequate infrastructure and staff. Most of the general clients (75%) attending ICTCs were provider initiated and 84.5% of antenatal women in the district attended pre-test counselling and also underwent HIV testing. Twenty six pre-test counselling sessions and 12 post test sero-positive counselling sessions were observed. Pre-test counselling content assessment revealed that only 57.4% of sessions address all the issues whereas, 79% of post-test sessions addressed most of the issues during counselling. Counsellors’ skills assessment information gathering and information giving were found to be poorly done. It was found that post test counselling sessions were not conducted for clients with HIV negative report. The aspects of ICTCs such as services provided at the centers, utilization of services by the clients, infrastructure and staffing pattern were found to be adequate. Counselling forms the vital component of the ICTC needed improvement and post test counselling should be mandatory to all the clients.
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Evaluation Studies as Topic , Counseling , HIV , IndiaABSTRACT
Background: HIV/AIDS being a behavioral disease, appropriate knowledge is important for those who are infected. Objectives: To elicit and compare knowledge and attitude about HIV/AIDS among newly diagnosed and previously diagnosed HIV/AIDS patients attending or admitted in Calcutta School of Tropical Medicine, (CSTM), Kolkata. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was undertaken among previously diagnosed HIV/AIDS Patients admitted in indoor wards and newly diagnosed HIV/AIDS patients attending Integrated Counseling and Testing Centre (ICTC) of the School of Tropical Medicine, Kolkata. Data were gathered by interviewing patients using a predesigned, pretested, semi-structured questionnaire. Results: More in-patients had heard about AIDS than ICTC patients. Television was the most popular source of information in both groups, followed by health personnel and friends. Correct knowledge about transmission, symptoms, prevention of AIDS, and lifestyles desirable for affected patients was significantly higher among in-patients who had already been counseled, than the newly diagnosed ICTC patients yet to receive. Within each group of patients, the knowledge score was significantly higher among females, Christians, urban residents, patients educated beyond middle school, and non- migrants. In-patients had a significantly higher attitudinal score toward HIV/AIDS. Conclusion: Repeated counseling is required to keep up high level of knowledge and positive attitude pertaining to HIV/AIDS to reduce risk behavior, prevent disease transmission, and improve quality of life.