Strengthening integration of chronic care in Africa: protocol for the qualitative process evaluation of integrated HIV, diabetes and hypertension care in a cluster randomised controlled trial in Tanzania and Uganda

Introduction In sub-Saharan Africa, the burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), particularly diabetes mellitus (DM) and hypertension, has increased rapidly in recent years, although HIV infection remains a leading cause of death among young-middle-aged adults. Health service coverage for NCDs remains very low in contrast to HIV, despite the increasing prevalence of comorbidity of NCDs with HIV. There is an urgent need to expand healthcare...