Health profile of DOTS-registered tuberculosis cases in a tertiary care hospital

Abstract

Background: Every year, more than 9 million new cases of tuberculosis (TB) occur worldwide and nearly 2 million people die of the disease. Problem of TB is enormous, and makes it a major public health problem in India. There is a need to study various sociodemographic factors associated with Directly Observed Treatment Short course (DOTS)-registered patients and health components affected by TB. Objective: To study health profile, sociodemographic profile of these patients, and to give recommendation based on study findings. Materials and Methods: It was a hospital-based cross sectional study conducted in DOTS OPD of our tertiary care hospital. All patients registered and taking treatment during January–June 2014 were included in study. Data were collected by a pre-structured questionnaire and were entered in a Microsoft Office Excel 2007 sheet and analyzed by Epi Info 7. Results: Of total 64 patients, 38 (60%) were male and 26 (40%) were females. Pulmonary TB was present in 43 (67%) and extrapulmonary TB was present in 21 (33%) DOTS-registered patients. Of 64 patients, 12 (19%) had a history of repeated admissions to the hospital for treatment of TB. HIV testing by an Integrated Counseling and Testing Centre (ICTC) were conducted in 63 (98%) patients and 7 (11%) were found to be reactive. All of them were on antiretroviral therapy (ART), and 51% of the patients had body mass index less than 18.5 kg/m2. Multidrug-resistant TB was 5% among total DOTS-registered patients in the present study. Irregular treatment was found in 17% patients. Conclusion: The study found that more than half of the patients were undernourished, and TB patients had low education and lower socioeconomic status along with problems of addictions, HIV co-infection, and irregular treatment. Adequate counseling and education of patients and their close relatives might help to improve treatment compliance and nutritional status of the TB patients.