Drug-resistant tuberculosis patient education and counselling

We're reducing the Impact of Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis through Patient-centred Education and Counselling (PEC). Burnet’s aim is to accelerate change through interventions that are informed and driven by the local stakeholders and community. We have a major focus on building local health worker capacity and strengthening systems to sustain the response.

Objective

A key example of this is through the way we are engaging and empowering the TB affected community in Daru, Papua New Guinea, through a pilot model of patient education and counselling (PEC) that trains and mentors a team of peer-counsellors or “TB-PALS” (People Affected by, Living with, or having Survived TB) to provide education and counselling to people taking treatment for TB disease and infection, and their families.

This team uses a patient-centred approach to provide psycho-emotional support, facilitate adherence to treatment and promote well-being.

The model of care integrates with facility and community-based delivery systems for both drug-sensitive (DS-TB) and drug-resistant (DR-TB) care and prevention that the Burnet Reducing the Impact of Drug-Resistant TB (RID-TB) project supports.

Timeline

2016–2020.

Community impact

Patient surveys regarding the counselling and education services have resulted in high satisfaction rates, demonstrating the appreciation felt by people on TB treatment for the support provided by the project team.