Essay Example on In Sudan around 56 000 people are living with HIV

Introduction In Sudan around 56 000 people are living with HIV and HIV prevalence is estimated at 0 4 1 Although the prevalence rate is relatively low compared to other African countries but a closer look at the affected population highlights a very clear concentrated epidemic among key population and in some geographical areas The prevalence rate is up to seven fold higher among key populations Men having Sex with Men MSM Female Sex Workers FSW in Red Sea Kassala Blue Nile states in comparison with the prevalence rate among general population in other parts of Sudan 2 Antiretroviral Treatment Centers ART Were established as standalone facilities which are detached from the hospital management and service delivery system are directly connected to State AIDS Control Program SACP The ART Centers generally have their own management system in separate building with their own laboratories pharmacies The running costs of these centers are provided from the SACP ART Centers do not include admission wards so they often request the general hospital to admit the sever cases of Patients Living with HIV PLHIV 2 The Federal Ministry of Health planned integration of HIV program in hospital management and to involve the civil society in order to increase the efficiency of health service provision by delivering the HIV services through the existing state health system and to improve the contribution of civil society organizations in working with key population 

2 While integration appear to provide efficient utilization of resources and better service range for HIV AIDS patients but the confidentiality of the patients will be compromised as they will attend to the same health facilities together with other patients and they will deal with broad range of people The weak confidentiality might make the patients reluctant to seek healthcare service and they will demonstrate poor compliance The integration will see more community pharmacists to have new responsibility in providing the HIV AIDS patients with medication and accompanied counseling and support Pharmacists can intervene to improve the expected patient poor adherence to their treatment for example they can register the patients at their medication picking dates and to send text messages to remind the patients to pick their medication this with other forms of counseling support 3 Pharmacist interventions can lead to better patient compliance and can improve the effectiveness of the Highly active antiretroviral therapy 4 Many researches have shown that HIV specialized pharmacies i e pharmacies that provide HIV counseling and support has positive impact in improving the patients compliance 4 5 2 Aim and research questions The aim of this study is to explore the opinions of community pharmacists on the provision HIV Antiretroviral Adherence Counseling and Support in Port Sudan Kassala Blue Nile states The study aims at providing an answer to the following questions What knowledge community pharmacists possess regarding the Adherence Counseling and Support How the pharmacists currently do HIV Antiretroviral Adherence Counseling and Support What are challenges that face the pharmacists in providing adherence support Do the pharmacists need a training to improve their knowledge and skills in adherence support 3 Method A qualitative design using structured interviews 

Transcription of audio materials recorded from structured interviews will be done by using transcription pedal A person will be recruited to help in transcription verification Materials will be coded by using NVivo software coding will be done in two cycles Primary cycle coding as well as Secondary cycle coding During the data immersion phase a series of discussion about the data and the emerging findings will be held in order to consider different interpretations Framework analysis will be used to look for patterns associations and explanations in data 4 Ethical consideration All participants will sign a written voluntary consent that includes all information about the study Consents will be written in English and Arabic languages Approvals from hospitals ministry of health will be obtained 5 Previous research There is an evident knowledge gap in this area in Sudan No previous studies are performed to explore the role pharmacists in HIV AIDS Adherence support and counseling One study about the subject is performed in United State 3 There are some other studies which are investigating questions related to the aim of this study the first one is a pilot study to assess the success community pharmacies in Nigeria in providing HIV AIDS services 6 and the other study was to examine the community pharmacy medication therapy management program on the adherence 7