Treatment Outcome of Tuberculosis Patients Registered at TB Centre in a Private Teaching Hospital, Sindh.

Abstract

Background: Upsurge of multidrug resistance tuberculosis is an emerging public health problem in developing
countries, associated with poor compliance with anti-tuberculosis therapy (Am. Directly observed treatment-short
course strategy (DOTS) has been widely reported to improve the compliance and treatment outcome among the
patients reported in all level of health care system. Current study was conducted with objective to evaluate treatment outcome among tuberculosis patients registered under DOTS.
Methodology: A descriptive study was conducted in DOTS center of private teaching hospital, District
Mirpurkhas, province Sindh from January - December, 2012. All registered patients were followed-up during their
course of treatment to assess treatment outcome in accordance of World Health Organization (WHO) guideline
as: cure, treatment completed, default, treatment failure, death or other. Data were analyzed by using EpiInfo
version 3.2.
Results: Among 641 patients, n=542 (84.5%) had pulmonary and n=99 (15.4%) had extra pulmonary tuberculosis, mean age was 27.7 years (range: 7-80), n=343 (53.5%) were male. Persons aged 25-34 years were highly
affected n=174 (27.1 %). Of all patients, treatment outcome was classified as treatment success (cure and treatment completed) in n=396 (61.7%), defaulted n=l66 (25.8 %), treatment failed n=24 (3.7%) and transferred out
n=51 (7.8%), death n=4 (0.6%) patients. Females n=93 (14.5%) and rural population n=98 (15.2%) were more
likely to experience default than males n=73 (11.3 %) and urban population n=68 (10.6%).
Conclusion: Treatment success rate among tuberculosis patients was fairly satisfactorily with high defaulter
rate, which may be corrected by enhance supervision, improved counseling activities and implementation of default tracing and home visit by health worker.
Keywords: Tuberculosis, Treatment, directly observed treatment-short course.