Effects of HIV/AIDS education and training on patient care and provider practices: a cross-cutting evaluation

Initial and continuing training in HIV/AIDS service provision is a critical way to enable the nation's health providers to use state-of-the-art developments and perspectives. Typically, the efficacy of HIV/AIDS training programs is evaluated using assessments administered to trainees immediately following the training. This study reports cross-cutting findings from telephone interviews conducted with 218 trainees an average of 8 months after training. Long-term training effects are examined in three domains: (a) general perspectives on HIV/AIDS; (b) health care provider service provision; and (c) changes in procedures and operations at the health care system level. The findings show the different ways that the training experience had long-term positive and observable effects in these three domains. In some cases, background characteristics and job positions predicted the specific type of reported training effects. The pattern of results suggests ways in which training methods can be targeted to specific audiences.