Perceptions of nurses on TB with HIV adherence counselling skills in a health sub-district, Cape Town: A qualitative study

BACKGROUND: People living with HIV (PLHIV) co-infected with Tuberculosis (TB) account for one in three HIV-related deaths. Retention in care and adherence to medication remain key behaviours that PLHIV co-infected with TB must adopt to achieve better health outcomes. Nevertheless, TB with HIV adherence-counselling services provided by nurses designed to enhance these behaviours remain inadequate. Additionally, limited information is found in the literature on the perceptions of nurses regarding their TB with HIV adherence counselling skills pertaining to PLHIV co-infected with TB. AIM: To explore and describe the perceptions of nurses regarding their TB with HIV adherence counselling skills of PLHIV co-infected with TB. SETTING: The study was conducted in a health sub-district of Cape Town. METHOD: An exploratory, descriptive qualitative design was followed. A total of 14 purposively sampled nurses were interviewed individually. Nurses caring for PLHIV co-infected with TB were included and nurses not offering care to PLHIV co-infected with TB were excluded. All interviews were audio recorded with the participants’ permission followed by verbatim transcriptions. Thematic analysis was done using ATLASti.8 electronic software. RESULTS: It was established that the varied roles of these nurses increased their workload. Nonetheless, despite the gap in their counselling skills, the majority still maintained work expertise, professionalism and empathy towards the patients. Additionally, there were perceived barriers impacting patients’ attendance of their follow up appointments. CONCLUSION: Based on the findings of this study, there is a need to equip nurses caring for PLHIV co-infected with TB with adherence counselling skills to improve practice. CONTRIBUTION: The findings were synthesised with results from an in-depth literature review to stand as the backbone for the development of a training programme for nurses to improve adherence counselling.