Document Type

Article

Department

School of Nursing and Midwifery, East Africa

Abstract

South Africa is faced with a huge challenge of addressing the high burden of tuberculosis-human immune virus (TBHIV) co-infection, and this challenge is more pronounced in the province of KwaZulu-Natal which has one of the highest burdens of TB-HIV co-infection in the world. The study explored the experiences of doctors and nurses with regard to the management of tuberculosis and HIV coinfection in a TB-HIV high burden community in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The particular focus was to provide insight and to inform policy and programme development for effective management of TB-HIV co-infection in the TB-HIV high burden community of northern KwaZulu- Natal. An interpretivist exploratory qualitative approach was employed through individual semi-structured interviews of 16 participants comprising eight doctors and eight nurses, with a total interview time of 8.95 hours. Purposive sampling was used to select the doctors and nurses from the public and private sector of the TB-HIV high burden community of northern KwaZulu- Natal. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. Five key themes emerged from this study and these themes were discussed together with the sub-themes based on the various participant responses. The five key themes were practical experience about the management of TB-HIV co-infection; access to information and training on the management of TB-HIV co-infection; challenges and concerns about the management of TB-HIV co-infection; perception about local beliefs; and knowledge of policies and guidelines. Overall, this study highlights barriers that hamper the effective management of TB-HIV co-infection in northern KwaZulu-Natal. Recommendations of this study point towards an urgent need to scale up the management of TB-HIV co-infection through effective policies, improved capacity and infrastructure, stronger partnerships of all stakeholders, and further research.

Publication (Name of Journal)

Journal of Public Health in Africa 2018

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Share

COinS