| Methods |
Design: retrospective cohort
Duration of study: recruitment September 2006 ‐ 2008, censored March 2009 (minimum 6 months, maximum 24 months follow‐up) |
| Participants |
Country: Ethiopia
Setting: nationwide, 30 hospitals, 25 health centres
Inclusion and exclusion criteria: nil described
Comparable CD4 count or clinical stage at baseline: similar CD4 count |
| Interventions |
Intervention: patients initiated and maintained at health centres by nurses and health officers. Severe manifestations, treatment failures were referred to hospital.
Control: initiated and followed up at hospital with physicians.
Co‐interventions: community health workers performed counselling, referrals and linkage between facilities and defaulter tracing in both groups |
| Outcomes |
Mortality, loss to follow‐up, retention, and median CD4 Count.
Assessed at 6, 12 and 24 months |
| Notes |
|
| Risk of bias |
| Bias |
Authors' judgement |
Support for judgement |
| Baseline CD4 count (All studies) |
Low risk |
Similar median CD4 count in both groups |
| Other baseline variables (All studies) |
Unclear risk |
Not described |
| Co‐ interventions (All studies) |
Unclear risk |
Community health workers delivered adherence and referral services from health centres to hospitals, unclear whether this was for both groups or for the health centre group only |
| Data collection (Cohorts) |
High risk |
Retrospective cohort |
| Patient selection bias (Cohorts) |
Low risk |
Randomly selected folders in all included sites in both groups |
