Socio-Demographic and Cultural Factors Influencing Treatment Outcomes among Patients with Tuberculosis Attending Tribal Health Care Centers of H. D. Kote Taluk, Mysuru District Boralingiah Prakash1,*, Chauhan Dennis2 1Professor, Dept of Community Medicine, JSS Medical College, JSS Academy of Higher Education and Research, Mysuru, Karnataka, India 2Senior Manager, Community Health Activities, Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement, Saragur, H.D. Kote Taluk, Karnataka, India *Corresponding Author: Prakash Boralingiah, Professor, Dept of Community Medicine, Jss Medical College, Jagadguru Sri Shivarathreeshwara University, Mysuru, Karnataka, India, Email: prakashdr90@yahoo.com
Online published on 20 March, 2019. Abstract Introduction Tuberculosis has challenged mankind since ages and unfortunately it remains as a global public health challenge even today despite enomorous advances in medicine and rapid expansion of health system. India is inhabitated by diverse groups of people, with a wide variety of socio-cultural backgrounds which includes the tribal population. Many of the cultural and socio economic factors among tribal population will determine the health care seeking behaviour and treatment outcomes in relation to tuberculosis. Objective To assess the socio-demographic and cultural factors influencing treatment outcomes among patients with tuberculosis among the tribal population Material and Method A community based Retrospective and Prospective follow up study was undertaken during February 2014 to October 2014. All the patients attending VMH, Sargur and H.D. Kote govt. hospital who are diagnosed for TB in past three months and those who will be diagnosed for the same in the next 6 months were included for the study. A pretested structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Data collected was entered in Microsoft excel sheet and analyzed by using SPSS-22.0. Results Jenu kurubas are the highest(68.7%) number of study subjects who made first visit to health facility 3 to 4 weeks after the symptoms appeared. 25% of study subjects were defaulters. Local migration for work (12.5%), Negligence as well as the bad habits of the patient(12.5%) were the factors responsible for defaulting. Conclusion 25% of the study subjects were defaulters of the DOTS treatment at the end of the study. Local migration for work, alcohol consumption, illiteracy were the factors responsible for defaulting of DOTS treatment. Special attention is to be done to strengthen the network and linkages between the DOTS centres of different places to minimize the effect of migration on treatment outcome. Top Keywords Treatment outcome, DOTS, Tribal population. Top |