Determinants of treatment interruption and outcome among smear-positive pulmonary tuberculosis patients in a tuberculosis unit of Purba Bardhaman district of West Bengal

CONTEXT: The adoption of directly observed treatment short course (DOTS) in Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme has given impressive results with higher treatment success. But interruption of treatment has been one of the major obstacles to treatment of tuberculosis. AIMS: The aim of the study was to evaluate the determinants of treatment interruption and outcome. It also evaluated the impact of treatment interruption on treatment outcomes. SETTINGS AND DESIGN: The study was carried out in the area covered under Bhatar tuberculosis unit (TU) of Burdwan district of West Bengal. The study was a descriptive cross-sectional study. METHODS AND MATERIAL: Smear-positive pulmonary tuberculosis patients were taken as study subjects in both the components of study. Complete enumeration technique, rather than sampling, was followed in this study. Data were collected in a predesigned and pretested schedule. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: Data were analyzed by percentages and proportion. Chi-square test was used to find the association between variables. RESULTS: Gender, religion, and substance abuse were found to be statistically significant factors with interruption. It was also observed that treatment outcome was not statistically significant with age, gender, religion, and category of treatment. In the study, 84.6% of the study subjects with interruption less than 1 week had favorable outcome. But in study subjects with longer duration of interruption (≥2 weeks), only 12.5% had favorable outcome. Not only interruption, duration of interruption was found to be adversely affecting the treatment outcome. CONCLUSIONS: Interruption had an impact on the treatment outcome in the present study. Unfavorable outcomes were significantly more frequent among patients with interruption as compared to those without any interruption.