The HIV/AIDS Helpline Is an Effective Tool of Communication

Background and Objectives: With the evolution of mobile technology, the cell phone has become a medium of communication for all manner of diseases. So far no study has been done in India to assess the effectiveness of an AIDS Helpline and that too as a stand-alone service. The objective of this study was to determine if the callers to the HIV/AIDS Helpline found it to be an effective tool of communication. Methods: All the calls received on ASHA Foundation’s HIV/AIDS manual helpline during the period of three years from April 2009 to March 2012, were included in this study. At the end of each call, the counselor asked the caller if he found the call useful and if so why he found it useful. If the caller did not find the call useful he also needed to say why he did not find it useful. Details of each call were recorded and entered on MS excel worksheet and finally analyzed using the SPSS software package. Results: The Helpline received 4692 calls during this period of which 90.9 % calls were from males and 9.1% calls were from females. Of the 4692 calls, 38.72% were from repeat callers. Of the 2875 first time callers, 85.07% responded and said that they found the helpline useful. Responses could not be elicited from the remaining 17% as the calls were disconnected before the question could be asked. Conclusions: Callers to the helpline were mostly male; 38.7% called again. All the callers who responded said that they found the helpline useful. Thus it is an effective tool of communication and could to be used to complement advanced care in HIV/AIDS.