ArticleJournal of the International AIDS Society2019
Enhancing an HIV index case testing passive referral model through a behavioural skills-building training for healthcare providers: a pre-/post-assessment in Mangochi District, Malawi.
Article in Journal of the International AIDS Society, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 15 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Effectiveness of Contact Tracing to Reduce Transmission of Infectious Diseases During Epidemic or Pandemic Response: Rapid Systematic Review.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2026Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Digital Training for Lay Health Care Workers' Knowledge and Skills in HIV Index Case Testing: Cluster Randomized Trial.JMIR medical education · 2026Trial
- Partner-delivered HIV self-test kits with and without financial incentives in antenatal care and index patients with HIV in Malawi: a three-arm, cluster-randomised controlled trial.The Lancet. Global health · 2021Trial
- Understanding how digital training enhances healthcare worker perceptions of HIV index case testing: a qualitative explanatory analysis.Research square · 2026Article
- Anticipated Acceptability of Blended Learning Among Lay Health Care Workers in Malawi: Qualitative Analysis Guided by the Technology Acceptance Model.JMIR formative research · 2025Article
- The Magnitude and Associated Factors of Early Index Case Testing Among Adult HIV Index Cases at Debre Markos Town High Load Health Facilities 2023.AIDS research and treatment · 2025Article
- Knowledge, attitudes, and practices of healthcare workers regarding human immunodeficiency virus index testing in 2021, Burkina Faso.Journal of public health in Africa · 2023Article
- Implementation process and challenges of index testing in Côte d'Ivoire from healthcare workers' perspectives.PloS one · 2023Article
- HIV diagnosis period influences ART initiation: findings from a prospective cohort study in China.AIDS research and therapy · 2021Article
- Perspectives on HIV partner notification, partner HIV self-testing and partner home-based HIV testing by pregnant and postpartum women in antenatal settings: a qualitative analysis in Malawi and Zambia.Journal of the International AIDS Society · 2019Article
- Enhancing an HIV index case testing passive referral model through a behavioural skills-building training for healthcare providers: a pre-/post-assessment in Mangochi District, Malawi.Journal of the International AIDS Society · 2019Article
- The power of partners: positively engaging networks of people with HIV in testing, treatment and prevention.Journal of the International AIDS Society · 2019Article
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Authors and funding
14 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
introductionAlthough knowledge of HIV positivity is a necessary step towards engagement in HIV care, more than one quarter of HIV-positive Malawians remain unaware of their HIV status. Testing the sexual partners, guardians and children of HIV-positive persons (index case finding or ICF) is a promising way of identifying HIV-positive persons unaware of their HIV status. ICF can be passive where the HIV-positive individual (index) invites a partner (or contact) for HIV testing or active where a health provider assists the index with partner notification and offers HIV testing to the partner. Strategies to improve passive ICF have not been thoroughly studied. We describe the impact of a behavioural skills-building training to enhance healthcare workers' (HCWs) implementation of Malawi's passive ICF programme.
methodsIn June 2017, HCWs from 36 health facilities in Mangochi were oriented to Malawi's ICF programme and began implementation. In February and April 2018, a total of 573 HCWs from these facilities received further training from the Tingathe Programme. The training focused on eliciting more untested sexual contacts from indexes and better equipping indexes on issuing "family referral slips" to contacts. Monthly programmatic data were abstracted from clinical registers from October 2017 to July 2018. Monthly programmatic indicators were collected from the Index Case Testing Register and the HIV Counselling and Testing Register and were entered into a data set with one record per facility per month. T-tests were used to compare the means of these indicators.
resultsDuring the ten-month study period, there were 200 facility-months observed before and 124 facility-months observed after training. The mean number of indexes identified per facility-month remained stable after training (pre = 18.9, post = 21.2, p = 0.74), but the mean number of sexual partners listed per facility-month (pre = 6.3, post = 10.6, p < 0.001) increased. The mean number of contacts who received HIV testing (pre = 11.1, post = 24.8, p < 0.001) and the mean number of HIV-positive contacts identified per facility-month (pre = 1.3, post = 2.3, p < 0.001) also increased.
conclusionsA brief behavioural skills-building training impacted a range of meaningful outcomes, including identification of HIV-positive individuals in a passive ICF programme. Such approaches could facilitate the identification of HIV-positive persons unaware of their HIV status, a necessary step for engagement in HIV care.
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