• Tiny Masupe, Yohana Mashalla, Esther Seloilwe, Harun Jibril, and Heluf Medhin.
• Department of Family Medicine and Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Botswana.
• Afr Health Sci. 2019 Sep 1; 19 (3): 2312-2323.

BackgroundThe epidemiologic transition and double disease burden from chronic infections and Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) worldwide requires re-engineering of healthcare delivery systems. Healthcare workers (HCWs) need to adapt to new integrated disease management approaches and change from current disease-specific management.ObjectivesThe study aimed to determine HCWs knowledge, capacity and skills for management of NCDs among HIV patients and their attitudes towards integrated HIV/NCDs disease management approaches for future clinical practice.MethodsDescriptive cross-sectional survey among HCWs attending to HIV patients at selected government facilities.ResultsOne hundred out of 105 responses were analysed. Only 6% could fully define NCDs. Awareness levels of NCDs were high: Diabetes and hypertension 98%; cancer 96%; cardiovascular diseases 86%. However, 11.8% and 58% classified HIV and malaria respectively as NCDs. Most respondents (88%) believe that integrating HIV/NCDs care would be good use of resources while 62% disagreed with current separate facility management of HIV patients with NCDs. Over 60% routinely screened HIV patients for NCDs risk factors: Smoking (87.2%), alcohol (90.8%), diet (84.9%) and physical activity (73.5%).ConclusionThere were gaps in detailed knowledge on NCDs, but positive attitude towards routine primary care integrated HIV/NCDs management, showing likely support for implementation of such policy.© 2019 Masupe et al.

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