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. 2022 Apr 20;22(1):297.
doi: 10.1186/s12909-022-03329-3.

A training for health care workers to integrate hepatitis B care and treatment into routine HIV care in a high HBV burden, poorly resourced region of Uganda: the '2for1' project

Joan Nankya-Mutyoba  1 , David Ejalu  2 , Claude Wandera  3 , Rachel Beyagira  4 , Jacinto Amandua  4 , Emmanuel Seremba  5 , Kaggwa Mugagga  6 , Andrew Kambugu  3 , Alex Muganzi  3 , Philippa Easterbrook  6 , Ponsiano Ocama  5
Affiliations

A training for health care workers to integrate hepatitis B care and treatment into routine HIV care in a high HBV burden, poorly resourced region of Uganda: the '2for1' project

Joan Nankya-Mutyoba et al. BMC Med Educ. .

Abstract

Introduction: The "2for1" project is a demonstration project to examine the feasibility and effectiveness of HBV care integrated into an HIV clinic and service. An initial phase in implementation of this project was the development of a specific training program. Our objective was to describe key features of this integrated training curriculum and evaluation of its impact in the initial cohort of health care workers (HCWs).

Methods: A training curriculum was designed by experts through literature review and expert opinion. Key distinctive features of this training program (compared to standard HBV training provided in the Government program) were; (i) Comparison of commonalities between HIV and HBV (ii) Available clinic- and community-level infrastructure, and the need to strengthen HBV care through integration (iii) Planning and coordination of sustained service integration. The training was aided by a power-point guided presentation, question and answer session and discussion, facilitated by physicians and hepatologists with expertise in viral hepatitis. Assessment approach used a self-administered questionnaire among a cohort of HCWs from 2 health facilities to answer questions on demographic information, knowledge and attitudes related to HBV and its prevention, before and after the training. Knowledge scores were generated and compared using paired t- tests.

Results: A training curriculum was developed and delivered to a cohort of 44 HCWs including medical and nursing staff from the two project sites. Of the 44 participants, 20 (45.5%) were male, average age (SD) was 34.3 (8.3) with an age range of 22-58 years. More than half (24, 54.5%) had been in service for fewer than 5 years. Mean correct knowledge scores increased across three knowledge domains (HBV epidemiology and transmission, natural history and treatment) post-intervention. However, knowledge related to diagnosis and prevention of HBV did not change.

Conclusion: A structured HBV education intervention conducted as part of an HIV/HBV care integration training for health care workers yielded improved knowledge on HBV and identified aspects that require further training. This approach may be replicated in other settings, as a public health strategy to heighten HBV elimination efforts.

Keywords: Health care workers; Hepatitis B; Knowledge; Uganda.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Schema showing pre-training HBV knowledge assessment, education intervention and post-training assessment of health care workers in West Nile region, Uganda
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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