Abstract:
Problem statement: TB patients lost to follow-up (LTFU), which is defined as “TB patients who has been on treatment for at least four weeks and whose treatment was interrupted for two or more consecutive month and were previously called defaulters.Treatment lost to follow up is a serious problem in tuberculosis control.Non-adherence is the consequences of inadequate and incomplete treatment to anti-TB treatment may result in the emergence of multidrug resistant tuberculosis bacilli, prolonged infectiousness and poor TB treatment outcomes.
Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the magnitude of lost to follow up to anti-tuberculosis treatment and its associated factors among TB patients who attend in Addis Ababa government health centres, Ethiopia.
Method: A facility based cross-sectional study design was conducted among all drugs susceptible that were newly put on TB treatment. The study was conducted in Addis Ababa city of five sub cities. Multi-stag sampling technique was applied. The final sample size was 1047. The data was collected by trained data collectors using a check list prepared from TB registration logbook. Using Epi Info software the data entry and sample size for the 2nd objective was predicted. Finally univariate, bivariate and Multivariate analyses were done using SPSS software.
Result: In this study we found from a total of 1047 patient records about 83(7.9%) were lost to follow up to TB treatment. In multivariable logistic regression model variables such as client who were unknown HIV status were significantly associated with lost to follow up to anti-TB treatment.
Conclusion: - Our study has provided us with useful insight about the magnitude and an associated factor of lost to follow up in the study area. We have found higher prevalence as compared to previous report. And clients who were unknown HIV statuses were significantly associated with lost to follow up to anti-TB treatment. Therefore the health facilities and the programmers need to investigate the reasons for this high loss to follow up, and why HIV unknown status were significantly associated with LTFUP to TB treatment.
......................................... Thesis available at ACIPH Library