ArticlePloS one2013
Levels of tuberculosis treatment adherence among sputum smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis patients attending care at Zomba Central hospital, southern Malawi, 2007-2008.
Article in PloS one, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Health-related quality of life and its association with medication adherence in active pulmonary tuberculosis- a systematic review of global literature with focus on South Africa.Health and quality of life outcomes · 2016Pooled it
- Intermittent Versus Daily Pulmonary Tuberculosis Treatment Regimens: A Meta-Analysis.Clinical medicine & research · 2015Pooled it
- Temporal Factors and Missed Doses of Tuberculosis Treatment. A Causal Associations Approach to Analyses of Digital Adherence Data.Annals of the American Thoracic Society · 2020Trial
- Integrating narrative and bibliometric approaches to examine factors and impacts of tuberculosis treatment non-compliance.Multidisciplinary respiratory medicine · 2025Article
- Quality of life and associated factors among patients with tuberculosis at the University of Gondar comprehensive specialized hospital, Ethiopia.Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation · 2021Article
- All nonadherence is equal but is some more equal than others? Tuberculosis in the digital era.ERJ open research · 2020Review
- Article
- Evaluation of serum inflammatory biomarkers as predictors of treatment outcome in pulmonary tuberculosis.The international journal of tuberculosis and lung disease : the official journal of the International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease · 2016Observational
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundDespite great efforts to control Tuberculosis (TB), progress is compromised by low adherence to medication, leading to prolonged duration of infectiousness and continued transmission. Investigating low adherence is of high importance from TB programmatic perspective. Though data on actual days of missed treatment exist, the effect of such on TB cure rates has not been investigated.
methodsTB operational research data were extracted for smear-positive pulmonary TB patients registered at Zomba Central hospital, Malawi from January 2007 to December 2008.
resultsOf the 524 patients, 302 (57.6%) were males and 340 (64.9%) fully adhered to treatment. Excluding 5 individuals with missing data on cure, four hundred and eighty-one (92.7%) were cured of TB, and of these 162 (33.7%) missed at least one day of treatment. Respectively, 49/64 (76.6%) and 71/76 (93.4%) of those who missed treatment in the intensive and continuation phases were cured of TB (p = 0.005). The adjusted logistic regression analysis showed that those who missed 15-29 days of treatment (OR = 0.04, 95% CI: 0.01, 0.14) were less likely to be cured of TB compared with those who fully adhered.
conclusionTreatment non-adherence was high and was observed even within the first 2 months of treatment. Thus, even at an earlier critical stage of treatment, simple algorithms need to be developed to identify and monitor patients at higher risk of non-adherence. Efforts on treatment compliance counselling should focus on enhanced counselling to improve adherence during the intensive treatment phase.
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