The effect of community-based support services on clinical efficacy and health-related quality of life in HIV/AIDS patients in resource-limited settings in sub-Saharan Africa.

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) for HIV/AIDS in developing countries has been rapidly scaled up through directed public and private resources. Data on the efficacy of ART in developing countries are limited, as are operational research studies to determine the effect of selected nonmedical supportive care services on health outcomes in patients receiving ART. We report here on an investigation of the delivery of medical care combined with community-based supportive services for patients with HIV/AIDS in four resource-limited settings in sub-Saharan Africa, carried out between 2005 and 2007.

Written parental consent in school-based HIV/AIDS prevention research.

Objectives: We examined the process of obtaining "active," written parental consent for a school-based HIV/AIDS prevention project in a South African high school by investigating (1) parental consent form return rates, (2) parents' recall and knowledge of the research, and (3) the extent to which this consent procedure represented parents' wishes about their child's involvement in the research.

Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive study comprised interviews with parents of children in grades eight and nine in a poor, periurban settlement in Cape Town.

Results: Within 2 weeks, 94% of 258 parents responded to a letter requesting written consent and of those, 93% consented, but subsequent interviews showed that 65% remembered seeing the consent form.