A study of adherence to DOTS regimen among pulmonary tuberculosis patients in West Tripura District.

Background: Noncompliance to the DOTS regimen leads to treatment failure, relapse, MDR tuberculosis, XDR tuberculosis etc. requiring more prolonged & expensive therapy.

Aim: To assess the adherence rate among pulmonary tuberculosis patients in west Tripura district and to study the factors affecting adherence to DOTS regimen among pulmonary tuberculosis patients.

Material And Methods: This community based cross-sectional study was conducted among 220 pulmonary tuberculosis patients registered for treatment with DOTS therapy; under six randomly selected DMC of West Tripura District.

Results: The study revealed that the adherence rate among the pulmonary TB patients was 84.50 percent. Male tuberculosis patients had 87.10 percent less chance of being adherent to the DOTS regimen in reference to females, and Cat I patients were 8.96 times (C.I. 2.689-29.857) more adherent to the therapy compared to the retreatment cases. Again, patients whose continuation phase was supervised as per the guidelines of DOTS were 12.07 times more adherent to the therapy. PTB patients who had the knowledge of supervised therapy in DOTS and curability of the disease, were 4.70 times (C.I. 1.39-15.79) and 9.39 times (C.I. 1.03-85.99) more adherent to the therapy, respectively.

Conclusion: The study showed good adherence to the regimen among pulmonary tuberculosis patients in spite of being a difficult area. It may also help in planning and implementation of tuberculosis control measures by addressing and overcoming the barriers regarding treatment completion.