To catalyse national scale up of PrEP for HIV serodiscordant couples in public health facilities in Kenya, the Partners Scale-Up Project, using a two-day case-based interactive curriculum, trained health care providers working in 24 high volume facilities in central and western Kenya on PrEP service delivery. Using a standardised test with questions about PrEP and antiretroviral-based HIV prevention we assessed gain in knowledge and confidence gain by comparing pre-and post-training test scores. We explored experiences of the training through key informant interviews after clinics started delivering PrEP. Of 716 health care providers trained, 235 (32.9%) were nurses, 144 (20.2%) were clinical officers and 155 (21.7%) were HIV counsellors. There was a significant improvement between the means of pre-test and post-test scores (61.7% (SD 17.4) vs 86.4% (SD 12.7) p < 0.001). The proportion of those who reported being 'very comfortable' providing care to HIV serodiscordant couples increased from 22.8% to 67.3% (p < 0.001). Key themes that training increasing both knowledge of PrEP and confidence to deliver PrEP to HIV serodiscordant couples emerged from interviews. This short, standardised training resulted in a substantial increase in knowledge of PrEP and in the confidence of the health providers to provide PrEP to HIV serodiscordant couples. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03052010.
Keywords: HIV serodiscordant couples; Kenya; PrEP scale up; health care providers; public HIV care clinics; training.