Hiv testing and counseling services in Kassala State, Sudan: what are the relevant beliefs of private healthcare providers?

ABSTRACT

HIV testing and counseling (HTC) services are essential for all HIV prevention and treatment interventions. Evidence is limited on the role of private healthcare providers in providing HTC services. This study assessed the relevant beliefs for intervention to enhance the intention to offer HTC services among private healthcare providers. A cross-sectional study included 387 private healthcare providers who completed a questionnaire about beliefs and intentions regarding offering HTC services. A Confidence Interval Based Estimation of Relevance (CIBER) approach was used to identify the most relevant beliefs. The behavioral belief “Offering HTC services would cause patients to feel worries” and the normative belief “My managers believe that I should offer HTC services to patients” were relevant beliefs for intervention. The control beliefs “If I offer HTC services, I spend more time with the patients” and “Patients are at low risk of HIV, and they would not need HTC services” were significantly associated with intention and important intervention candidates. The belief “If I offer HTC services, I would be concerned about HIV test results confidentiality” was a relevant belief to target with intervention. The beliefs of private service providers differ in their association with relevance to their intention to offer HTC services. More relevant beliefs need to be selected to increase the potential effectiveness of the interventions to promote the private healthcare providers’ intentions to offer HTC services.

KEYWORDS:

• Beliefs
• intention
• HIV testing
• private providers
• confidence interval-based estimation of relevance (CIBER)

Acknowledgments

The authors thank all participants who participated in the study for providing their beliefs regarding HIV testing services.

Author contribution

AI collected the data. AI, RC, and HV-B made the idea and design. All authors contributed to the analysis and interpretation of the study data. They drafted and revised the manuscript and gave approval for the manuscript to be published.

Ethical approval and consent to participate

The Kassala State Ministry of Health Research and Ethics Committee approved the study. All the participants consented before participating in the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Availability of data and materials

The data are available upon request from the authors.