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Ntuli A Kapologwe, Julieth S Kabengula, Sia E Msuya. Perceived barriers and attitudes of health care providers towards Provider-Initiated HIV Testing and Counseling in Mbeya region, southern highland zone of Tanzania. The Pan African Medical Journal. 2011;8:17 Key words: Attitude, barriers, provider-initiated testing and counseling, HIV, Tanzania Permanent link: http://www.panafrican-med-journal.com/content/article/8/17/full Received: 14/09/2010 - Accepted: 22/02/2011 - Published: 03/03/2011 © Ntuli A Kapologwe et al. The Pan African Medical Journal - ISSN 1937-8688. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Perceived barriers and attitudes of health care providers towards Provider-Initiated HIV Testing and Counseling in Mbeya region, southern highland zone of Tanzania
Ntuli A Kapologwe1,2 &, Julieth S Kabengula3, Sia E Msuya2,4
1Health Department, Mbeya City Council, Mbeya, Tanzania, 2KCM College, Tumaini University, Moshi, Tanzania, 3Muhimbili National Hospital, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania 4KCMC Hospital, Moshi, Tanzania
&Corresponding author
Ntuli A Kapologwe, Health Department, Mbeya City Council, Mbeya, Box 149, Mbeya, Telephone: +255 765 62 72 51, KCM College, Tumaini University, Moshi, PO Box 2240, Telephone number: +255 765 62 72 51, Tanzania
Provider-initiated testing and counseling (PITC) is a routine HIV testing and counseling, it encompases two strategies including; diagnostic HIV testing and HIV screening. In Tanzania PITC started in 2007, to date it is almost through out the country. This study aimed at assessing the perceived barriers and attitudes of health care providers towards PITC services.
A cross sectional study was conducted for one month between April and May, 2010 in the goverment health care facilities of the Mbeya City Council. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select both health facilities and health care providers.
A total of 402 (95%) subjects were interviewed. Their mean (± SD) age was 41 ± 9.5 years, where majority (65%) were females. All the participants reported to be aware about PITC services. However, about 35% of them had negative attitude towards PITC services. Various perceived barriers to effective PITC provision were reported, including; too many patients (57.7%) and inadequate space (46%) for PITC provision.
Although PITC is an effective strategy for identification of unrecognized HIV infections, there is still missed opportunity which occurs at the health facilities, as some of health care providers had negative attitude and others faces various barriers in offering the PITC service.
