Knowledge about Treatment aspects of Pulmonary Tuberculosis Patients registered under Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme(RNTCP), at Mangalore, South India

Radha Aras; Poonam Naik; SandhyaRani Javalkar

Volume : V, Issue : IV, April - 2015

Knowledge about Treatment aspects of Pulmonary Tuberculosis Patients registered under Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme(RNTCP), at Mangalore, South India

Radha Aras, Poonam Naik, Sandhyarani Javalkar

Abstract :

Background: Correct knowledge of Tuberculosis patients of Directly Observed Treatment Short

course(DOTS) of RNTCP is important.

Objective: To assess the knowledge of Tuberculosis patients regarding treatment aspects and it’s association with few

socio–demographic variables.

Methods: A cross–sectional study was conducted, by randomly selecting 349 pulmonary tuberculosis adult patients

registered under RNTCP in Mangalore , Karnataka ; using predesigned, structured, pre–validated questionnaire.

Results: Among the participants, 96.3 % were aware of the correct treatment duration under RNTCP, 77% of all being

literate(P=0.035) but 49.9% were under misconception that “ getting rid of symptoms means getting rid of the disease”. More males than females have better understanding about disease recovery( P < 0.05)

Conclusion: This study highlighted that though the awareness about some basic facts about TB treatment was adequate there is a great need to improve it among illiterate patients and females ,by removing misconceptions.