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Success Story
USAID helps TB
specialists improve
communication with
patients, enhance
treatment outcomes
New Method Aids TB Counseling
Photo: Project HOPE \Maya Nedirova
Doctor Sakhedov shares new counseling
techniques with his colleagues in Mary
Province.
USAID introduced a
simple yet effective f ipchart
method to enable TB
specialists explain to their
patients the complexities
of their disease and its
treatment.
TB patients have to adhere to a long treatment course even after
they’re no longer experiencing TB symptoms in order to become
completely cured. Effective counseling is essential in ensuring that
patients understand their infection and get fully cured, so that the
disease does not spread further or morph into more dangerous
forms. Yet TB specialists often fi nd it difficult to answer the broad
range of questions about TB treatment and care. It is not always
easy to explain the disease in a simple and effective way that will
convince their patients to adhere to the treatment plan. To address
this challenge, USAID helped to develop trainings and tools to
assist TB specialists in communicating with patients who depend on
them.
In November 2008, USAID organized a training of trainers in the
capital city of Ashgabat for 20 doctors from around the country
to introduce a simple yet highly effective method for counseling.
The doctors learned how to use a flip-chart with illustrations and
informational prompts to guide medical specialists through the
counseling session, and to help the patients visualize and absorb
the information provided. This tool had been developed and used
successfully by USAID throughout Central Asia to improve the care
that TB specialists provide to their patients. Now adapted for use
in Turkmenistan, with illustrations by a local artist, the flip-chart
has been published in the Turkmen and Russian languages, and
distributed to TB specialists around the country.
One of the specialists trained in the flip-chart method was TB doctor
Muhammed Sakhedov from Mary Province. “Our skills in counseling
must constantly be improved and adapted in practice, because our
patients’ treatment outcomes are greatly affected by precisely these
skills,” said Dr. Sakhedov. “Since this training, I have had several
cases where these new skills have been very helpful for me to
persuade and effectively counsel patients.”
Together with other participants, Dr. Sakhedov was also trained how
to transfer his counseling knowledge to other medical professionals.
Within a couple months of their training course, Dr. Sakhedov
and his colleagues had trained 142 nurses from TB hospitals
and primary health care facilities, so that more people across
Turkmenistan can benefit from the assistance provided by USAID.
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