An assessment of counselling and support services for people living with HIV in Gauteng, South Africa: findings of a baseline study

Abstract

An increasing body of literature shows that HIV/AIDS and mental health issues are closely related. In spite of this, the mental health correlates of HIV and AIDS remain largely unacknowledged and under-researched in sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, despite guidelines by the World Health Organization insisting that counselling with integrated psychological or mental healthcare  helps people living with HIV or AIDS (PLHIV) to deal with their disease status and thus increases their quality of life, the services and interventions to address this significant health burden are still lacking, making the HIV/AIDS and mental-health nexus a sizeable social services and health problem. As part of an ongoing research programme at the University of the Witwatersrand to address this, the article reports on a baseline study that sought to identify the nature and extent of counselling and support services available to PLHIV in Gauteng Province. The study found that available counselling and support services are focused largely on voluntary counselling and testing for HIV (VCT), which appears to be primarily an educational intervention rather than a therapeutic modality. Service providers within this framework have inadequate knowledge and capacity to identify mental health problems. The findings of this study point to a strong need for integrated HIV/AIDS services that include assessment of mental health and substance abuse problems and their appropriate management. Appropriate training and supervision of healthcare workers and counsellors is an essential component in the identification and referral of HIV patients with mental health problems.

Keywords: health interventions, health promotion, human resources development, mental health, psychological aspects, qualitative study

African Journal of AIDS Research 2010, 9(4): 367–372