Hi all,
I am from Uganda ( still in the developing process), where social media and online communication is still expensive and only accessed by a certain small population of the country.In the community where we carry out research, these two have not affected the trial’s engagement strategies with the stakeholders.They are not not known due to the cost attached to the technology.
True we have experienced unexpected issues at our site;
1. A participant failed the criteria of the trial, and when she went into the community she told the rest that were enrolled that we are giving them HIV and eventually we study it as it progresses in their bodies. She told them that the blood tubes that we use to collect blood have a fluids inside and that is what eventually gets into them through the butterfly needle.
The rumor went wild in the community, participants declined subsequent visits, and we got this information from one of our members of the “special Advisory Group” in that community. We quickly arranged and convened a community meeting to address the issue. Explanations were provided to the members in the meeting, time to ask questions was provided, and eventually at the end, blood draw demonstration was done on one of the research staff on the team in the community.To try and clear the air that the tube contains no HIV.
We learnt that such groupings are important in the community to act as ears of the researchers and eyes in the community to address community concerns as soon as possible.
