Evaluation of socio-demographic profile and basic risk factors of tuberculosis patients in South 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, India: a hospital-based study.

Abstract

To study and analyse the socio-demographic profile and basic risk factors of tuberculosis(TB) patients and their relation with the current epidemiological status of TB registered under the RNTEP program in the study area. This prospective study was conducted on 1743 newly registered tuberculosis patients at TB-DOT center of South 24 Parganas, West Bengal, India from 2011-2014. Socio-demographic variables and baseline characteristics of the participants were noted by a semi-structured questionnaire. Our study results indicate that more than 95% of the TB patients were from lower socioeconomic class, and had poor literacy status and tuberculosis was observed highest in non-agricultural labour and cultivators. Among the young adult's majority of the affected population were females from the lower/upper-lower socioeconomic class. Our analysis revealed that, in successful tuberculosis therapy, men were more defaulters than women. Our study provides a socioeconomic profile and the risk factors of tuberculosis in patients such as the status of therapeutic intervention, involvement of other chronic diseases, age, sex and malnutrition. The findings of this study can be used to plan future studies with specific risk factors of the region and also for implementing the intervention and evaluating its effectiveness.