Table 2.

Themes emerged from the qualitative analysis

Theme	Theme description
Frequency and duration of the nutritional counselling	This relates to the frequency of nutritional counselling over the course of participants’ enrolment in the nutritional programme. Duration indicates the length of an individual nutritional counselling session.
Contents of the nutritional counselling	This refers to the actual topics discussed during the nutritional counselling
Acceptability of the nutritional counselling	This theme relates to the acceptability of the nutritional counselling and recommendations by participants
Applicability of the nutritional programme	Refers to the actual implementation of the nutritional recommendations given by the health professional
Challenges/barriers in relation to nutritional counselling	This theme identified the challenges of nutritional counselling in HIV care from the perspectives of study participants including applicability