An Assessment of the VCT services and counseling Applications in selected VCT Centers of Dire Dawa city
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Date
2007-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
HIV/ AIDS has been seriously threatening the social, psychological, health and
economic situations of the contemporary society, in order to pave the way to mitigate the
expansion of the pandemic, different strategies have been designed. One of these
strategies is the establishment of VCT Centers. Hence, the purpose of this study was to
assess vcr services and counseling applications provided by selected VCT Centers of
Dire Dawa City. More over, an attempt was made to explore whether the counselors
skills demonstrated and contents discussed in counseling sessions were in accordance
with UNAIDS and MOH vcr protocol. In order to assess VCT Services and counseling
applications at the VCT Centers 3 sample VCT Centers were purposefully selected from
Government Hospital, Private Hospital and NGO VCT Centers. In this study a total of 130
clients were s elected using availability sampling techniques and 6 counselors and 3
coordinators were purposefully selected. In order to collect the relevant data, interview,
Focus Group Discussion, observation and questionnaires were used. Questionnaire for
clients were prepared based on VCT protocol developed by UNAIDS and MOH. Both
quantitative (i.e., descriptive statistics) and qualitative data analys is methods were used
to analyze the data. According to the finding of the study, counseling skills
demonstrated by the counselors and contents of counseling discussed between the client
and the counselor in the VCT Centers under investigation found to be in accordance with
s tandards of VCT protocol. Howe ver, all counselors of VCT Centers did not apply
counseling theories and techniques at all. Inadequate training for counselors, inadequate
space for privacy and waiting area, workload on counselors, and lack of professional
capacity to handle serious cases were the major problems. Thus, it could be reasonable
to recommend intensive training by relevant p rofessional persons for the VCT counselors.
Finally, based on the findings, recommendations were forwarded to minimize the
problem and help to effectively implement counseling
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Keywords
HIV/ AIDS has been seriously threatening the social, psychological, health