Providers’ and patients’ perceptions on task shifting as a model for improving uptake of Provider Initiated HIV - Testing and Counselling services in Kenya

Abstract

The HIV policy in Kenya recommends routine HIV testing and counselling to all clients attending public health facilities to facilitate early diagnosis and enrolment to care and treatment. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends task shifting in HIV testing and counselling to ease the burden on medical health workers. There is limited evidence on implementation of task shifting in a public health facilities in Kenya. The study aimed 1)to establish the perspectives of health care providers on taskshifting in the public health facilities in Kenya, and 2) assess client’s satisfaction with the services offered through the task shifting model. A mixed method approach was used; a cross sectional descriptive design was adopted with qualitative and quantitative approaches. Results indicated positive response among medical health providers with regard to the task shifting; 83% of the medical health providers described the relationship between medical and non-medical health providers as excellent. Levels of clients’ satisfaction improved significantly with introduction of task shifting from 50% to 70% respectively. There was also a correlation between the number of non-medical providers who were engaged and the annual uptake of the PITC services that increased from 122,442 in 2010 to 209,022 in 2014.Task shifting strategy in HIV testing and counselling was therefore found to be feasible for scaling-up of HIV testing and counselling in the public health facilities.