Impact of self-management education on CD4 and health status of HIV/AIDS patients in semi-rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Abstract

This paper reports on the impact of an intervention to encourage self-management of treatment upon CD4 ratios and health status of HIV/AIDS patients: a quasi experimental study in a semi-rural area in KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa. Participants were a purposive sample of 88 HIV/AIDS patients. Participant’s CD4 cell count results were retrieved from the clinic records and a questionnaire was administered pre- and post-intervention after twelve weeks. Paired Samples Test results reveal a statistically significant difference between the mean CD4 counts pre- and post-intervention for both groups. However, the differences between means for both groups deviated from one another significantly. The intervention group shows a higher mean difference. For the intervention group the difference between means was -178.09, while –72.29 was the difference between means for the control group. Post-intervention results showed that the intervention and control groups are statistically significantly different in terms of CD4 count mean scores (t = 3.741; df = 80; p = .000 < .05); and their mean scores on physical functioning (t = 3.900; df = 79; p = .000 < .05), vitality (t = 3.285; df = 79; p = .002 < .05) and general health (t = 2.107; df = 79; p = .039 < .05), physical health (p = .001< .05) and role limitation due to emotional problem (p = .007 < .05). The study demonstrated that self-management education impact positively and significantly on the mean CD4 cell counts and health status of HIV/AIDS patients. The findings suggests that combining self-management education with highly active antiretroviral therapy may improve health care of HIV/AIDS patients in resource limited rural setting and most likely in other settings.