Nurses as providers of emotional support to patients with MDR-TB.

Aim: To identify the forms and means of emotional support that nurses provide to patients living with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MTR-TB) in Lima, Peru.

Background: A fundamental role of nurses is to provide emotional support, defined as all the strategies that a health team employs to assure the psychosocial well-being of the patient. However, neither the forms of emotional support nor the means used by nurses in resource-poor settings have been much written about.

Contact investigations as a means of detection and timely treatment of persons with infectious multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.

Setting: Two regions of metropolitan Lima, Peru.

Objective: To determine the outcomes of two contact investigation strategies used in therapy enrollment cohorts of patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).

Design: From 28 August 1996 to 31 December 1999, 91 index patients received individualized MDR-TB therapy (Group A), and from 1 October 1997 to 31 December 1999, another 101 index patients received a standardized MDR-TB regimen (Group B).

The role of the nurse in the community-based treatment of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).

Setting: A community-based treatment program for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in Lima, Peru.

Objectives: To describe the activities carried out by the nurses working with the program.

Design: A qualitative study using a variety of ethnographic methods, including participant observation, focus groups, and key informant interviews over a 5-year period.