Provision of antiretroviral therapy for children in Nelson Mandela Bay: Health care professionals’ challenges

African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Provision of antiretroviral therapy for children in Nelson Mandela Bay: Health care professionals’ challenges
 
Creator Williams, Margaret Van Rooyen, Dalena R.M. Ricks, Esmeralda J.
 
Subject Primary health care Antiretroviral therapy; children; healthcare professionals; primary healthcare clinics
Description Background: The human immunodeficiency virus and/or acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) pandemic continues to increase in prevalence worldwide, particularly in South Africa, and includes the often overlooked paediatric population. The provision of paediatric antiretroviral treatment (ART) is as essential for children as for adults, and has numerous obstacles, not least of which is lack of decentralisation of facilities to provide essential treatment. Optimising ART, care and support for HIV-positive children, and their caregivers, at public sector primary health care (PHC) clinics is crucial to improve morbidity and mortality rates in children.Aim: To explore the experiences of health care professionals regarding the provision of ART for children at PHC clinics.Setting: The study was conducted in six PHC clinics in Nelson Mandela Bay Health District, Eastern Cape, South Africa.Methodology: The researchers used a qualitative, explorative, descriptive and contextual research design with in-depth interviews. We used non-probability purposive sampling. Data collected were thematically analysed using Creswell’s data analysis spiral. We used Lincoln and Guba’s model to ensure trustworthiness. Ethical standards were applied.Results: Health care professionals experienced numerous challenges, such as lack of resources, need for training, mentoring and debriefing, all related to providing decentralised ART for HIV-positive children at the PHC level.Conclusion: Capacitation of the health care system, integration of services, competent management and visionary leadership to invoke a collaborative interdisciplinary team approach is required to ensure that HIV is treated as a chronic disease at the PHC clinic level.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor none
Date 2018-03-12
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Qualitative research
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/phcfm.v10i1.1490
 
Source African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine; Vol 10, No 1 (2018); 10 pages 2071-2936 2071-2928
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/1490/2384 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/1490/2383 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/1490/2385 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/1490/2382
 
Coverage Nelson Mandela Bay health district, Eastern Cape 2012-2013 25-75 years, male & female, healthcare professionals, varied ethnicity
Rights Copyright (c) 2018 Margaret Williams, Dalena R.M. Van Rooyen, Esmeralda J. Ricks https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
ADVERTISEMENT