The Status, Problem and Implementation of hot line counseling service in the case of National AIDS Resource Center (NARC): Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Abstract

Abstract

Background: A hotline is a specialized telephone service that provides an effective way to listen to and counsel callers, disseminate information, and refer callers to services and resources for further help. Hotlines are used in many countries for a variety of reasons, such as crisis lines or providing information on family planning, reproductive and sexual health, HIV/AIDS, and human rights. Hotlines cannot operate in a vacuum, because they rely on a network of organizations that offer face-to-face counseling, medical services, or access to more information.

Method: An institutional based cross-sectional study design was employed to address the major objectives of the study; to assess the status, problem and implementation of online counseling services in case of NARC. The study encompasses hotline counselors, supervisors and coordinators. Sampling techniques that used in this research is simple random probability sampling, the data collection was performed through questionnaire, interview and document analysis were employed.

Result: The major finding of this study were there is an increment of the status of NARC, based on counselors experience of understanding the problems and interview of supervisors, there are some problems that faces NARC, for instance, call abuse (prank calls), high work load in counselors, stress of work, unsuitable work environment, technological system problem like busyness of telephone lines, silence of calls, and lack of trained supervisor to support all counselors emotionally or technically this means that there is no statistical significance in problem that they face. There is a statistically significant difference between counselor's ways of implementation of works in NARC P < .05.

Conclusion: There is a relatively increments of the status of the NARC in different conditions, such as in number of staff members, number of callers per year, and answered calls by counselors per year, based on counselors experience of understanding the problems and interview of supervisors, there are some problems that faces NARC, for instance, call abuse (prank calls), high work load in counselors, stress of work, unsuitable work environment, technological system problem like busyness of telephone lines, silence of calls, and lack of trained supervisor to support all counselors emotionally or technically and there is a statistically significant difference between counselor's ways of implementation of works in NARC.      

Key words: Hotline, Counseling, Status, NARC