Open AccessEasy, Faster, and Not Bloody: Providers' Perceptions on PrePex™ in South Africa
Author(s) -
Minja Milovanovic,
Noah Taruberekera,
Karin Hatzold,
Neil Martinson,
Limakatso Lebina
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
the journal of the association of nurses in aids care/journal of the association of nurses in aids care
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.636
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1552-6917
pISSN - 1055-3290
DOI - 10.1016/j.jana.2016.07.004
Subject(s) - interquartile range , medicine , health care , public health , family medicine , cross sectional study , intervention (counseling) , nursing , surgery , pathology , economics , economic growth
PrePex™ (Circ MedTech Ltd., Tortola, British Virgin Islands) devices are being evaluated in several countries for scale-up of medical male circumcision (MMC) as an HIV prevention intervention. Health care workers' perceptions should be considered prior to scale-up. A cross-sectional open-ended questionnaire was administered to health care workers from nine MMC programs in South Africa that provided either PrePex™ and surgical circumcision (mixed sites) or surgical circumcision only (surgery-only sites). A total of 77 health care workers (37 at mixed sites and 40 at surgery-only sites) with median ages of 29 years (interquartile range 27-37) and 34 years (interquartile range 29-42), respectively, were recruited into the study. The perceived benefits of PrePex™ MMC for health care workers were: device simplicity, convenience, bloodless, and ease of use. Identified challenges included limited public knowledge of device, pain, smell of necrotic skin, and delayed healing. Health care providers perceived the PrePex™ MMC device to be simple and adaptable for existing MMC programs.