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Collaborative Education Regarding Prevention of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Transmission in Healthcare Settings-Ghana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 June 2016

Wendy Cronin
Affiliation:
Johnson and Johnson Medical Inc., Arlington, Texas The Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, Baltimore, Maryland
Phyllis Antwi
Affiliation:
The National AIDS Control Programme, Ministry of Health, Ghana
Elaine Larson*
Affiliation:
The Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, Baltimore, Maryland
*
The Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, 386 Houck Building, 600 N. Wolfe St., Baltimore, MD 21205

Abstract

Objective:

To evaluate the effectiveness of a collaborative and participatory approach to professional training to reduce the risk of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmission.

Setting:

Healthcare settings in Ghana.

Methods:

Two 5-day workshops were conducted for high-level nurse educators and leaders who could contribute to national policy development A combination of didactics, skill development sessions, field experiences, and development of draft national guidelines and curriculum were used. Outcomes evaluated were pre-to-post training changes in HIV knowledge and attitudes and changes in practice within selected healthcare settings. One-month follow-up visits (times not specified to participants) were used to evaluate outcomes.

Results:

At post-test, significantly fewer participants thought HIV was transmitted by saliva, sweat, or tears (chi square, p<.0001), and significantly fewer reported hesitation to care for an HIV-infected patient because of lack of understanding about mode of transmission or because of lack of supplies, such as gloves (chi square, p<.01). In field observations, there was an overall 42% improvement in specific infection control practices.

Conclusions:

A collaborative and participatory approach to training can result in significant changes in infection control practices, even in settings with limited resources.

Type
Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America 1991

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References

REFERENCES

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