Evaluation of an intensive HIV/AIDS counselling course in Zimbabwe

The anticipated increase in the number of people with HIV infection and AIDS in Zimbabwe, together with those who have associated worries, will place extra demands upon clinical and counselling services in the coming decade. To meet these demands, a wide range of health care staff will have to acquire specialist counselling skills. For this reason, an intensive 2 day HIV/AIDS counselling training course was run at the Family Counselling Unit, Harare, in February 1989. The structure, content and evaluation of the course are presented here. Overall, the course was positively evaluated by the 38 trainees. However, a number of trainees were critical about some of the teaching methods and the degree of emphasis given to some of the objectives. Our experiences may help others in establishing HIV/AIDS counselling courses elsewhere.