Current research and good practice in HIV and AIDS treatment education.

As ART is scaled up there is a growing realisation among programme managers and donors that merely providing ART and training health providers is not sufficient and that unless efforts are made to engage communities and individuals to improve their knowledge and understanding of HIV AIDS and ART programmes will not be able to meet the targets set by these initiatives and will fall far short of contributing to the goal of attaining universal access to treatment. Treatment education has thus become a critical link between service provision and actual uptake of services. This paper describes current research and field experiences related to HIV and AIDS treatment education undertaken with individuals and communities and focuses on a select number of treatment education programmes that are currently underway in Kenya South Africa Thailand Uganda and Zambia. The paper also discusses a treatment literacy intervention evaluated in the United States. These programmes in Africa and Asia were selected because they represent a range of treatment education and adherence support interventions that target individuals and/or communities in developing countries where documentation has been more limited. The paper highlights some of the successes of these programmes and identifies the gaps and problems experienced while conducting treatment education. (excerpt)