Health care workers’ knowledge and attitude towards TB patients under Direct Observation of Treatment in Plateau state Nigeria, 2011

INTRODUCTION: Tuberculosis (TB) is a public health problem in Nigeria. Adherence to the total duration of treatment is critical to cure the patients. We explored the knowledge of the health care workers on management of TB patients including their perceived reasons for patient non adherence to treatment to develop strategies to improve the quality of the TB control service in the state. METHODS: We conducted a cross sectional study. We used self administered questionnaire to extract information from the health workers on their trainings for TB control, knowledge of the control services, patients’ education including prevention of defaulting from treatment. We conducted focus group discussion with the health care workers. We performed descriptive analysis using epiInfo software. RESULTS: Of the 76 respondents 41 (53.9%) were female, 39.9% were community health extension workers, 26.3% were nurses/midwifes 30.3% lacked training on management of TB patient. Only 43.4% knew when to take action on patients who miss their drugs in the intensive phase, 30.3% and 35.5% knew defaults among category 1 and category 2 in the continuation phases of treatment respectively. They identified side effects of drugs (80%), daily clinic attendance (76.3%), health workers attitude (73.4%) and lack of knowledge on duration of treatment (71.1%) including their unfriendly attitudes towards the patients as the major barriers to patients’ adherence to treatment. CONCLUSION: Lack of knowledge of the health care workers on management of TB patients and poor interpersonal relation and communication with patients have negative effect on patients’ adherence to the long duration of TB treatment.