Effectiveness of Clinician Client Centered Counseling on HIV Knowledge and Attitudes of Adult HIV/AIDS Patients Enrolled in Care in Yola, Nigeria: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Abstract

This study assessed the effectiveness of a clinician client centered counseling on HIV knowledge and attitudes towards HIV/AIDS of adult HIV positive patients enrolled in care in Yola, Nigeria. The study was a 3 arm randomized single blind clinical trial involving 386 randomly selected and allocated adult HIV patients who were enrolled into ART at the 4 comprehensive ART sites in Yola. A clinician client centered training module was developed based on the Information Behavior and Motivation (IBM) Model. Nine Clinicians involved in ART care were trained with this module to deliver a 10 to 15 minutes clinic based intervention (Clinician Client Centered counseling). Intervention group 1 received two counseling sessions; at baseline and at 2 months. Intervention group 2 received one counseling session at baseline and the control group received routine care. An interviewer administered validated and structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Data was collected at baseline, 2 months and 6 months. Outcome measures were knowledge on HIV transmission and prevention and attitude towards HIVAIDS. Significant main effects for groups (F (2, 331) = 17.410, p = 0.0001), time (F (2) = 49.826, p = 0.0001, partial ἠ2 = 0.134) and group-time interaction (F (2, 331) = 4.239, p = 0.015, partial ἠ2 = 0.026) were seen for HIV knowledge scores. Significant main effects were seen for groups (F (2) =11.107, p = 0.021, partial ἠ2 = 0.065) and time (F (2) = 34.088, p = 0.0001, partial ἠ2 = 0.096) for HIV attitudes scores. Clinician client centered counseling is effective in improving knowledge on HIV transmission and prevention and attitudes towards HIV/AIDS.