Listening to patients: targeted intervention research to improve STD programs
Field, M.L.
Aidscaptions 3(1): 16-19
1996
PMID: 12291846 Document Number: 302121
Patients' beliefs about the causes of illness and their perceptions of the services available to treat them significantly influence whether, when, and where they seek care. The transmission of sexually transmitted diseases (STD) is best prevented through the delivery of prompt, effective treatment to STD index patients. Local perceptions, terminology, practices, and beliefs about various illnesses must therefore be studied in order to best design and deliver such prevention and care services. Developed by the AIDS Control and Prevention (AIDSCAP) Project to identify perceptions and beliefs which serve as barriers to STD treatment and prevention, the targeted intervention research (TIR) rapid ethnographic methodology bridges the gap between research and practice. The TIR is modeled after the World Health Organization's Acute Respiratory Illness Focused Ethnographic Survey. It is designed so that STD program managers can conduct their own studies with the help of a multidisciplinary technical advisory group of local experts in STD services, communication, and social science research. An AIDSCAP manual provides STD managers with step-by-step guidelines to organizing a TIR study. AIDSCAP has sponsored TIR studies to improve STD services in six countries, with a seventh planned in collaboration with UNICEF. The experience of TIR in Senegal, Ethiopia, Zambia, and the Philippines is described, followed by discussion of the challenge of improving programs.