1,721,078 research outputs found
Understanding the role of HIV testing and counselling services in HIV prevention in rural Tanzania
Full text linkThis thesis aims to describe the uptake and coverage of HIV testing and counselling
(HTC) services in a community cohort study in rural Tanzania between 2003 and
2010, and to investigate the impact of HTC on changes in sexual risk behaviour and
HIV incidence.
Paper A uses data from three HTC services (community outreach HTC (CO-HTC),
walk-in HTC (WI-HTC) and antenatal HTC) linked to the community cohort data to
compare the characteristics of services users, and found that while WI-HTC was
most likely attract HIV-positive individuals, the overall proportion of infected persons
diagnosed was greatest at CO-HTC.
Rates of repeat testing are important to understand given potential HIV treatment as
prevention approaches. Paper B found that small proportions of cohort participants
repeat tested between 2003 and 2010, although this improved over time.
Paper C presents a quantitative analysis of the impact of CO-HTC on changes in
sexual behaviour and HIV incidence, and found moderate associations between
HTC use and reductions in some risk behaviours among HIV-negative participants,
but no impacts among HIV-positive individuals or reductions in HIV incidence,
possibly as a result of small sample sizes and a declining background incidence in
the study area.
Paper D presents findings from a qualitative study exploring the effectiveness of HIV
prevention counselling messages, which showed that relationship dynamics
constrained the extent to which HIV-negative women felt able to control their HIVrelated
risk, and imbalanced client-counsellor interactions limited communication
during counselling sessions.
Overall, the findings from the thesis reveal that provision of different HTC models
increased the uptake of services, but the proportions of individuals repeat testing
were low and there was limited evidence for an impact of HTC on sexual risk
reduction. Future research should explore the effectiveness of different HTC
modalities in encouraging repeat testing among high risk HIV-negative individuals,
influencing sexual behaviour change and linking HIV-positive people to care and
treatment
Meeting the sexual and reproductive health needs of HIV care and treatment clients in Swaziland: A comparative case study of integrated and stand-alone models of care
Full text linkBackground: The scale-up of HIV care and treatment services in sub-Saharan Africa has been accompanied by calls to address the broader health care needs of people living with HIV (PLWH), including their sexual and reproductive health (SRH) needs. The integration of HIV and SRH services has been proposed as an important means to achieve this. This thesis presents a comparative case study investigating health care structure, process and outcomes across four different models of HIV services in Swaziland: two integrated SRH-HIV clinics, one semi-specialist HIV outpatient unit at a hospital, and one stand-alone HIV clinic.
Methods: Mixed methods were used including in-depth interviews with providers and clients, and an exit survey (N=611) with HIV clients. Qualitative data were analysed thematically. Quantitative data were compared across clinic models using chi-squared tests and analysis of variance. Selected outcomes were analysed with logistic regression modelling. Qualitative and quantitative data were triangulated and integrated in the presentation of results.
Findings: A critical need for SRH services was identified across all four sites. Most clients relied on condoms alone for contraceptive protection, reflecting a service focus on reinfection rather than pregnancy risk. In multivariable analyses, integrated sites did perform better than the most stand-alone site in promoting access to family planning and pregnancy counselling, but were no better or worse in providing condoms, addressing unmet needs for family planning, achieving client satisfaction and reducing stigma. Provider capacity to move beyond HIV care was limited, even at integrated sites, by a range of contextual factors, including individual provider, interpersonal, infrastructural or systems, and institutional factors. In particular, heavy client loads and perceived needs for fast care inhibited exploration of clients’ holistic needs.
Discussion & conclusions: While integrated services offer opportunities to promote service uptake, this capacity can only be translated into health outcomes when a range of contextual contingencies are addressed. Promoting more client-centred continuity care may help facilitate this. Widespread assumptions that integrated services are better than stand-alone models have been challenged by this study: a well-run stand-alone site can achieve positive outcomes, including impacts on family planning needs and client satisfaction. PLWH should be able to choose a model of care that suits their particular situation and needs best
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Access to HIV Care and Treatment among Residents of a rural ward in North-West Tanzania During The First Two Years of the National Antiretroviral Therapy Programme
No full textEThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo
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