Improving the Counselling Skills of Lay Counsellors in Antiretroviral Adherence Settings: A Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial in the Western Cape, South Africa

Little research has investigated interventions to improve the delivery of counselling in health care settings. We determined the impact of training and supervision delivered as part of the Options: Western Cape project on lay antiretroviral adherence counsellors’ practice. Four NGOs employing 39 adh...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:AIDS and behavior 2015-01, Vol.19 (1), p.157-165
Main Authors: Dewing, Sarah, Mathews, Cathy, Schaay, Nikki, Cloete, Allanise, Simbayi, Leickness, Louw, Johann
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anti-HIV Agents - therapeutic use
Antiretroviral agents
Antiretroviral drugs
Compliance
Counseling
Counseling - education
Evidence-Based Medicine
Health behavior
Health Care Services
Health Psychology
Health Services Needs and Demand
HIV
HIV Infections - therapy
Human immunodeficiency virus
Humans
Infectious Diseases
Intervention
Interviews
Medication Adherence - psychology
Medications
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
NGOs
Nongovernmental Organizations
Original Paper
Professional Competence - standards
Professional-Patient Relations
Program Evaluation
Public Health
South Africa
Supervision
Training
Trials
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Summary:Little research has investigated interventions to improve the delivery of counselling in health care settings. We determined the impact of training and supervision delivered as part of the Options: Western Cape project on lay antiretroviral adherence counsellors’ practice. Four NGOs employing 39 adherence counsellors in the Western Cape were randomly allocated to receive 53 h of training and supervision in Options for Health , an intervention based on the approach of Motivational Interviewing. Five NGOs employing 52 adherence counsellors were randomly allocated to the standard care control condition. Counselling observations were analysed for 23 intervention and 32 control counsellors. Intervention counsellors’ practice was more consistent with a client-centred approach than control counsellors’, and significantly more intervention counsellors engaged in problem-solving barriers to adherence (91 vs. 41 %). The Options: Western Cape training and supervision package enabled lay counsellors to deliver counselling for behaviour change in a manner consistent with evidence-based approaches.
ISSN:1090-7165
1573-3254
DOI:10.1007/s10461-014-0781-4