Adherence to antituberculosis drug regimens is critical for the prevention and treatment of tuberculosis in pediatrics. In a large retrospective series of children and adolescents in Barcelona, Spain, completion of treatment was worse among patients treated for latent infection, compared with those treated for active tuberculosis or receiving primary chemoprophylaxis. Toxicity and cultural and language barriers were identified as predictors of nonadherence.
The risk factors for poor adherence to antituberculosis therapy need to be identified to optimize treatment success in latent tuberculosis infection and disease in children and young people. Simultaneous application of several educational and monitoring methods in nurse-led follow-up shall improve adherence in children and adolescents in our setting. These results may also be applicable in other settings, where tuberculosis is more prevalent and directly observed treatment strategies are not available.
The nurse-led intervention was associated to an increase in adherence to antituberculosis treatment. Immigrant-related variables remained major risk factors for sub-optimal adherence in a low-endemic setting.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.