KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation (KNCV) is one of the leading international non-profit organizations dedicated to fighting tuberculosis (TB) worldwide. We are an international center of expertise for TB control that stimulates effective, efficient, and sustainable tuberculosis control strategies in a national and international context. We are an organization of passionate TB professionals, including medical doctors, researchers, training experts, nurses, and epidemiologists. Over the past century we have built a wealth of knowledge and expertise, initially by successfully driving back TB in the Netherlands, and subsequently by partnering in the fight against TB in over 40 countries worldwide. We operate from a central office in The Hague in the Netherlands and additional country offices worldwide. KNCV raises funds from individual, institutional and corporate donors.

Background

Pharmacovigilance is key to better understand the safety of medicines with the aim to prevent or minimize adverse drug reactions (ADRs), a major cause of morbidity and mortality. In Sub Saharan Africa (SSA), public health programs (PHPs) play a key role in providing treatment for poverty-related infectious diseases including HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis (TB). Though in many innovative medicines countries not yet approved by the NMRA (EFDA in Ethiopia), such as medicines for shorter, all-oral treatment for multidrug resistant TB, are being used by thousands of difficult-to-treat TB patients, often under programmatic conditions, with limited resources for close patient monitoring. These new medicines and regimens are being introduced globally through NTPs with the help of the Global Drug Facility (GDF) providing for quality assured medicines. In PHPs there has been ample attention for the management of ADRs in individual patients caused by anti-TB medicines, but until recently there has been no attention to the importance of reporting ADRs to the NMRA to improve medicine safety on a population level. This lack of safety monitoring can pose a serious risk to public health as countries cannot rely on safety data produced from the populations in which the medicines were developed. The Pharmacovigilance Africa (PAVIA) project aims to strengthen pharmacovigilance systems in four SSA countries by fortifying the collaboration between PHPs and NMRAs, starting with the relationship between the NTPs and the NMRAs. To be able to measure improvements during the course of the project, a baseline assessment and endline assessment is conducted. This work is part of the endline assessment for Ethiopia.

The title of the qualitative study is “Collaboration between stakeholders to improve pharmacovigilance systems in Ethiopia.” The qualitative study will answer the following research question “What improvements have been made in the pharmacovigilance systems in Ethiopia after fortifying the collaboration between PHPs and NMRAs, including the relationship between the NTP and EFDA under the PAVIA project?”

Research design
Qualitative research design

Methods

Setting

There are four sub-Saharan countries participating in the PAVIA project: the Kingdom of Eswatini, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Tanzania. Endline assessments in three of these countries are nearing completion. For Ethiopia, collection of data prior to the country visit (provisionally planned for October 2002) needs to be organized.

Data collection

The data collection for this endline assessment is planned for September 2022. Qualitative data will be collected through distance or face-to-face interviews following pre-structured interview guides. The scope of work includes a brief introduction into the PAVIA project and the project-specific setting in Ethiopia, planning of the interviews with a pre-specified list of key stakeholders, informed consent taking, conducting and recording the interviews following the interview guides (either in Amharic or English, if the interviewee has sufficient proficiency in English, then English is preferred), transcription of the interview (we used the freely available Otter-software (https://otter.ai) for the other countries which is useful when the interview is in English), translation (if necessary) and analysis. Also, the work includes writing short interview reports (to capture the setting and atmosphere during the interviews) right after each interview. Data analysis can be done in Nvivo. The candidate should ideally be able to conduct open coding, build coding trees, and find relationships using a thematic approach: interviews will be coded using both a deductive and inductive method and consequently categorized in themes. Preparation of a short report with conclusions per area of interest is also part of this work.

More details about the PAVIA project can be found on the website: https://pavia-project.net/

Necessary approval of the medical ethics committee is already obtained, as this work is part of an ongoing project.

Place in the organization

The consultant researcher will report reports hierarchically to the study supervisor at KNCV HQ and KNCV country Representative and functionally to PAVIA in country Coordinator

Duties and Responsibilities – data collection

• In consultation with KNCV HQ staff and the national PV coordinator for PAVIA at EFDA, identify participants based on eligibility criteria, obtain consent, and enroll participants into the study.
• Assign a participant identification number (PIN) according to the qualitative interview.
• Conduct in-depth interviews with health care workers (pharmacists, nurses, and clinicians), policymakers, and researchers
• Ensure that all sessions are audio recorded (preferably) in English or otherwise the local language.
• Maintaining respectful interactions with participants
• Maintain participant confidentiality
• Arrange convenient setting for interview
• Coordinate and schedule Interviews
• Complete missed or incomplete interview (if any)
• Write interviews reports, right after interview is finished
• Maintain all procedures of data quality and ethical requirements
• Properly manage audio records and hand over the audio records and all related documents to the research coordinator when the interview is completed.
• Transcribe interviews verbatim
• Translate interviews from local language to English if needed

Duties and responsibilities – data analysis

• Open coding of transcripts
• Participate in meetings to discuss open coding with KNCV HQ researchers
• Build a coding tree and continue coding
• Forming themes and theories after discussion with KNCV HQ researchers
• Log coding process and choices made
• Find patterns and relations to construct a theory

Time schedule

• September 2022/October 2022

Expected result

• Weekly progress meetings with supervisor, during max. 4 weeks
• Recordings, transcripts and short interview reports of all interviews
• Short report

Number Required: 2 (Two)

• BSc/MSc/MPH degree in Nursing or Public Health or other related fields (sociology, psychology or psychiatry…) from an accredited higher education institution.
• Excellent experience in conducting in-depth qualitative interviews
• Excellent experience in analyzing transcripts, coding, and building theories
• Strong field coordination and organizational skills
• Ability to follow deadlines, accuracy, documentation, and attention to detail
• Training in good clinical practice (GCP), Research ethics, and data quality control/assurance (preferred)
• Excellent interpersonal communication skills.
• Ability to work with others/teamwork, including collaborators
• Excellent oral and writing skills in a local language, and English.
• Willingness to take up additional responsibilities and training as needed

What do we offer?

Rate contract based on the number of in-depth interviews (audio record) done, transcribed and translated (page format: Times New Roman, 12 font, 1.5 line space).

KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation is an equal opportunity employer offering employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, national origin, citizenship, physical or mental handicap,