Pediatric HIV treatment, care and support services at health center levels in Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Ethiopia is one of the countries hit hard by the HIV epidemic. There is low enrollment rate to care & treatment among HIV patients in general and pediatric HIV cases in particular. Decentralization to primary health care (PHC) with task shifting to mid-level health workers has been the main strategy used to improve access to pediatric HIV care and treatment. This study attempts to compare the knowledge and skill of health care providers at PHC level and the enrollment rate of pediatrics HIV infected and HIV exposed infants and overall quality of care at the supported and nonsupported health centers. The support provided was capacity building of health care providers through training and intensive mentoring.

Methods: An analytic retrospective cohort study was conducted on 117 health centers in Oromia, Tigrai, Amhara and Southern nations and nationalities and peoples’ (SNNPR) regions. Two categories of study population were compared:, the health centers & the health care providers in ’the supported health centers’ with the health centers & the health care providers in ‘non-supported health centers’. Pretested data collection tool was used to collect data from both categories of study population, specifically the health care providers and from the health centers national HIV/ART registers.

Results : A total of 117 health care providers were assessed, 50.4% were females, their mean age was 30.32 (±6.24) with range between 22 and 50 yrs.; 62.4% were married; 68.4% were diploma nurses, 23.9% were health officers and the rest 7.7% were BSC(degree) nurses. Knowledge and skills on clinical examination and diagnosis was found to be ‘good' (≥70%) in the supported health centers (86.1%) compared to the non-supported (50%) with RR (95%CI) = 1.72(1.23, 2.41). ...