Patients’ perceived quality of the care provided during the management of HIV/AIDS in a tertiary care setting in Nigeria

Abstract

Background: The provision of patient-centred care by clinicians is believed to improve patient satisfaction with care as well as the outcome of treatment.Objective: To assess the quality of personalized care provided to people living with HIV/AIDS in a typical Nigerian health care setting and its association with patients’ knowledge and attitude towards HIV/AIDS and patients’ knowledge and attitude towards antiretroviral therapy.Methods: The study was a cross sectional study carried out in the HIV/AIDS clinic of the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital, Nigeria. Data on the demographic and clinical details of the patients were obtained from patients’ case notes using a suitably designed, pre-piloted data collection instrument. Furthermore, data on the quality of patient-centred care, patients’ knowledge and attitude towards HIV/AIDS, and patients’ knowledge and attitude towards antiretroviral therapy was obtained using ‘Patient Assessment of Quality of Individualized care for Chronic Illness Scale’, ‘Patient knowledge and attitude towards HIV/AIDS questionnaire; and ‘Patient knowledge and attitude towards antiretroviral therapy questionnaire’, respectively.Quantitative data were analysed using Statistical Program and Service Solutions (SPSS) version 25.0 computer package. Descriptivestatistics were used to summarize data, while inferential statistics were used where applicable with statistical significance set at p<0.05.Results: The overall mean patients’ satisfaction with individualized care score was 3.54 (SD = ±0.86; Max. = 5). The mean scores of the patients’ knowledge and attitude towards HIV/AIDS were 6.80 (SD = ± 1.079; Max. = 8) and 5.5 (SD = ± 0.924; Max. = 7) respectively, while the mean scores of the patients’ knowledge and attitude toward antiretroviral therapy were 5.7 (SD = ± 1.103; Max. = 10) and 4.2 (SD = ± 0.874; Max. = 6). Multivariate linear regression revealed that the quality of patient centred care was a predictor of knowledge and attitude towards antiretroviral therapy (B=0.511; CI = 95%, p = 0.024).Conclusion: The quality of patient-centred care provided to persons living with HIV/AIDS in the facility is satisfactory. Patients perceived quality of care appear to be a predictor of knowledge and attitude towards antiretroviral therapy.