Factors associated with loss to follow up in Tuberculosis patients in Bamrasnaradura Infectious Diseases Institute

Abstract

          Tuberculosis is a serious public health problem in Thailand. At the Bamrasnaradura Institute’s Respiratory Disease Unit, the success rate of TB treatment is lower than the target set by the World Health Organization (WHO). This research is a retrospective descriptive study which aimed to examine factors affecting default cases registered at the Institute since 2016. Data on 167 TB patients was collected from registration forms and patient records. The data consisted of four factors: personal information, treatment information, service information and factors prompting the patients to discontinue treatment. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and chi-square for factors relating to discontinuance of treatment.

          The study found that the three factors (personal, treatment and service providing) had no statistical relationship with default cases. This conclusion may be caused by various issues which contribute to the limitations of the research:

1. The majority of the samples were chronic patients who had extensive experience of being treated at the institute. They were used to taking a lot of medication every day for a long time and had experienced the resulting side effects. They also had difficulties in traveling to receive medication. These two negative experiences may have affected the patients’ decision to discontinue medication.


2.  When considering the treatment results, it was found that TB patients with HIV had died before the end of the treatment.  Changing treatment locations, as per the patients’ right, could be another factor that decreases the cure rate/(completed treatment) below the WHO’s target.