Clients’ Satisfaction With Hiv/Aids Care Services Offered At The Comprehensive Care Centre Machakos District Hospital, Kenya.

ABSTRACT

Virtually unheard of three decades ago, AIDS is, at the turn of the century, one of the best known and most talked about diseases on the globe. The study sought to establish clients‟ satisfaction with HIV/AIDS care services offered at the Machakos District Hospital CCC and the possible factors that influence their satisfaction. A lot of resources have been channelled towards the fight against the pandemic but very little has been done on satisfaction of those services from the recipient‟s point of view. A study on clients‟ satisfaction of services offered at the Coast Provincial Hospital‟s comprehensive Care Centre showed that clients felt stigmatised, received poor services coupled with long hours of waiting and experienced hostility from the health workers. With this background, a comprehensive study of client‟s satisfaction with HIV/AIDS care at the Hospital‟s Comprehensive Care Centre was carried out. The study was guided by the following specific objectives, first, to identify the HIV/AIDS care services offered at the CCC in reference to the CCC strategic plan, second, to establish the client‟s satisfaction with the services offered at the Machakos Comprehensive Care Centre and lastly to identify factors that influence the clients‟ satisfaction with HIV/AIDS care offered at the Comprehensive Care Centre. The study took a descriptive cross-sectional approach that mainly targeted PLWHAs in Machakos District. A representative sample of the study population was obtained by use of the 10% principle as explained by Gay and used by Karimi, It was obtained by the use of a formulated eligibility criteria (exclusion and inclusion). Data was collected through an interview schedule, key informant interviews and an observation guide. SPSS version 15 was used for analysis and inferential statistics used to test hypothesis and explain relationships. Results were considered significant when p value was equal or less than 0.05. The results revealed that the clinic mainly offered counseling and testing for HIV, prevention of new infections, management of opportunistic infections‟ client support services and PMCT. Majority (127/165) of the clients in the sample reported lack of satisfaction with the services offered at the centre. Results from Chi-square test were further confirmed by use of logistic regression analysis that showed that; Education level (p = 0.02), Marital status (p=0.044), income level (p=0.02), staff attitude (p = 0.01) and gender (p=0.01) were found to have influenced clients‟ satisfaction with the services at the Comprehensive Care Centre. The study findings therefore reject the null hypothesis, and adopt the alternative. The study therefore concludes that, clients were not satisfied with the services they received from the Comprehensive Care Centre. The study recommends that, the centre be properly equipped with all necessary resources to serve the clients more efficiently, effectively and further studies be done on other Comprehensive Care Centres thorough out the country to document experiences, case studies and model best practices for sharing among stakeholders to strengthen service provision in the country.