Enrolment under of Nikshay Poshan Yojana among tuberculosis patients in a tertiary care hospital of Delhi

Abstract

To mitigate malnutrition among tuberculosis burden, Government of India launched Nikshay Poshan Yojana in 2018, providing incentive of INR500 per month to each enrolled patient. Our study tried to find out the status of the scheme and its target benefits amongst the beneficiaries in a tertiary care hospital in Delhi, and also the facilitating factors and barriers towards enrolment, and their knowledge, attitude and practice towards nutrition in TB. MethodsA cross-sectional study was undertaken at a tertiary care hospital involving a calculated sample of 188 patients. The subjects were interviewed on a pre-designed, semi-structured, validated questionnaire and data was analysed on SPSS v.21. ResultsEnrolment rate for the scheme was 81.4%, of which only 10% of the participants received any benefit. Of the 35 participants who were not enrolled or were not aware of their enrolment status, 22 were interested in enrolment. The reason for non-enrolment by the 21 participants who were not enrolled were lack of awareness, lack of time or lack of a bank account. ConclusionThe study found that most of the patients attending DOTS treatment were enrolled under the scheme, but 90% were not receiving any incentive promised under it.