Abstract
Background: TB burden in Iraq,is 45 for incidence and 73 for prevalence.In 2009-2011, 5-6% of the patients defaulted from treatment
Methods: longitudinal study conducted in Baghdad,all TB patients registered during (April–December)2013 were requested to participate in the study.A form collected information about the socio-demographic characteristics, presence side effects of drugs and other predictors of defaulting.Patient followed-up till the end of treatment or default. Defaulted patients were interviewed with form focused on causes, and presence of coincident events. SPSS V20 was used for analysis.Multivariate binary logistic regression used to estimate predictors and Kaplan Meier cohort analysis used to further investigate the significance of factors, and predict probabilities of default according to treatment duration
Results: This study enrolled 1100 patients.Age average was 38.2 y, male to female ratio was 1:1, 49.5% of patients had families sized 5-10 persons.6% of patients had education higher than secondary school.12.4% had fixed income. 89.4% live in urban area. Pulmonary TB patients form 60.4%, and proportions were: 89.5% new patients, 6.5%relapsed patients,2.8% failure patients and 1.2% default patients.18 patients had defaulted. minimum duration of treatment for them was 3 weeks and maximum was 17weeks.58.8% of those patients suffered from social stigmata.77.8% of them were visiting private doctors.29.4% sold anti-TB from private pharmacies. History of previous default multiplies the risk of default. Highest rates of hazard are patients older than 65,with low income, and previously default
Conclusion: Important factors are social stigmata, private sector, and patient education on treatment adherence.
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