Antituberculosis Drug Nonadherence and Its Associated Factors: Evidence from Debre Berhan Town, North Shewa Zone, Ethiopia

INTRODUCTION: Tuberculosis is a bacterial disease caused by the Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Regardless of many efforts made to control tuberculosis, the disease remains to be a major public health problem. Nonadherence to antituberculosis treatment poses a challenge to the disease treatment as it potentially increases the risk of drug resistance, mortality, relapse, and extended infectiousness. The North Shewa Zone had a poor performed on TB control status, so this study assessed the prevalence of antituberculosis drug nonadherence and its associated factors at governmental health institutions in Debre Berhan town, North Shewa Zone, Ethiopia, 2020. METHODS: An institution-based cross-sectional study design was employed. A total of 180 tuberculosis patients were included in the study. The data was entered using EpiData version 3.1 and exported to SPSS version 20.0 for statistical analysis. Bivariable and multivariable logistic regression analyses were computed to determine factor associated with antituberculosis drug nonadherence. RESULT: Study finding shows that 26.0% respondents were nonadherent to their antituberculosis treatment. Respondents who were married were less likely to be nonadherent than who were single (AOR = 0.307; 95%CI = 0.120, 0.788). Respondents who have primary and secondary education were less likely to be nonadherent than those who had no formal education (AOR = 0.313; 95%CI = 0.100, 0.976). Respondents who experienced drug side effects were two times more likely to be nonadherent than those who did not experience drug side effects (AOR = 2.379; 95%CI = 1.008, 5.615). In addition, respondents who do not screen for HIV were four times more likely to be nonadherent than their counterparts (AOR = 4.620; 95%CI = 11.135, 18.802). CONCLUSION: The antituberculosis drug nonadherence is high. Marital status, educational status, drug side effects, HIV screening status of the patients, and availability of medication were the variables that influence drug nonadherence. There is a need to strengthen awareness creation and improve quality of the TB treatment services and anti-TB drug availability.