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BMC Public Health
Published in: BMC Public Health 1/2010

Open Access 01-12-2010 | Research article

Management of pulmonary tuberculosis patients in an urban setting in Zambia: a patient's perspective

Authors: Chanda Mulenga, David Mwakazanga, Kim Vereecken, Shepherd Khondowe, Nathan Kapata, Isdore Chola Shamputa, Herman Meulemans, Leen Rigouts

Published in: BMC Public Health | Issue 1/2010

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Abstract

Background

Zambia continues to grapple with a high tuberculosis (TB) burden despite a long running Directly Observed Treatment Short course programme. Understanding issues that affect patient adherence to treatment programme is an important component in implementation of a successful TB control programme. We set out to investigate pulmonary TB patient's attitudes to seek health care, assess the care received from government health care centres based on TB patients' reports, and to seek associations with patient adherence to TB treatment programme.

Methods

This was a cross-sectional study of 105 respondents who had been registered as pulmonary TB patients (new and retreatment cases) in Ndola District between January 2006 and July 2007. We administered a structured questionnaire, bearing questions to obtain individual data on socio-demographics, health seeking behaviour, knowledge on TB, reported adherence to TB treatment, and health centre care received during treatment to consenting respondents.

Results

We identified that respondents delayed to seek treatment (68%) even when knowledge of TB symptoms was high (78%) or when they suspected that they had TB (73%). Respondent adherence to taking medication was high (77%) but low adherence to submitting follow-up sputum (47%) was observed in this group. Similarly, caregivers educate their patients more often on the treatment of the disease (98%) and drug taking (100%), than on submitting sputum during treatment (53%) and its importance (54%). Respondent adherence to treatment was significantly associated with respondent's knowledge about the disease and its treatment (p < 0.0001), and with caregiver's adherence to treatment guidelines (p = 0.0027).

Conclusions

There is a need to emphasise the importance of submitting follow-up sputum during patient education and counselling in order to enhance patient adherence and ultimately treatment outcome.
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Metadata
Title
Management of pulmonary tuberculosis patients in an urban setting in Zambia: a patient's perspective
Authors
Chanda Mulenga
David Mwakazanga
Kim Vereecken
Shepherd Khondowe
Nathan Kapata
Isdore Chola Shamputa
Herman Meulemans
Leen Rigouts
Publication date
01-12-2010
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
BMC Public Health / Issue 1/2010
Electronic ISSN: 1471-2458
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-10-756

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