Title: How can healthcare providers affect patient adherence?
Course: Communicable Diseases Part 3 - Ethiopia (Full)

How can healthcare providers affect patient adherence?

The role of health workers like you is essential for good adherence to ART. Good knowledge and skills about ART and issues concerning adherence, and about patient education and counselling, can provide them with practical support. Healthcare providers can help patients by providing medication alerts, charts, diaries, by giving them advice on the use of reminders, and by putting into place tracking mechanisms for their drug intake. By providing support for patients, you can create trust and maintain a fruitful partnership between the patients and the health system.

Negative attitudes towards patients' ability to adhere to ART will discourage your patients and undermine their efforts to maintain good adherence practices. By contrast, positive views about patients' attitude to treatment, and being careful to avoid patients feeling controlled, will help you to build a successful partnership with patients to promote optimal adherence (Section 23.6).