Health seeking behaviour and delayed management of tuberculosis patients in rural Bangladesh

Abstract

BackgroundEarly diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) and involvement of the public-private partnership are critical to eradicate TB. Patients need to receive proper treatment through the National Tuberculosis Control Programme (NTP). This study describes various predictors for health seeking behaviour of TB patients and health system delay made by the different health care providers.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted in a public health facility of a rural area in Bangladesh. Newly diagnosed smear positive pulmonary TB (PTB) patients who were ≥ 15 years of age were sequentially enrolled in this study. The socio-demographic characteristics and proportion of health care utilization by the patients, and health system delay made by the health care providers were calculated. Multivariate analysis was conducted to determine the independent association of the risk factors with the time to seek medical care.ResultsTwo hundred and eighty patients were enrolled in this study. Among them, 73.6% were male and 26.4% were female. A hundred percent of patients primarily sought treatment for their cough, 170 (60.7%) first consulted a non-qualified practitioner while 110 patients (39.3%) first consulted with qualified practitioners about their symptoms. Pharmacy contact was the highest (27.9%) among the non-qualified practitioners, and 58.9% non-qualified practitioners prescribed treatment without any laboratory investigation. The average health system delay was 68.5 days. Multiple logistic regressions revealed a significant difference between uneducated and educated patients (OR 2.33; CI 1.39–3.92), and qualified and non-qualified practitioners (OR 2.34; CI 1.38–3.96) to be independent predictors of health system delay.ConclusionsCompared to men, fewer women sought TB treatment. Uneducated patients and questionably qualified practitioners made for a longer delay in detecting TB. Increasing public health awareness and improving health seeking behavior of females and uneducated patients, and greater participation of the qualified practitioners in the NTP are highly recommended.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12879-018-3430-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Health-seeking behavior of patients with COVID-19 infection

“…This paper aimed to describe the health-seeking behavior of discharged patients with COVID-19 infection, with consideration of variables including how much times patients sought treatment, when and where the first sought treatment, disease course and factors affecting health-seeking behavior. Different from other similar studies about health-seeking behavior of patients with respiratory infectious disease [13][14][15], there were no significant difference between gender, age, and symptoms on health-seeking behaviors of patients with COVID-19. This maybe for a new Public Health Emergency of International Concern, the health-seeking behavior of patients with COVID-19 mainly depends on government policies at early stage of the outbreak.…”

Availability and price changes of potential medicines and equipment for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 among pharmacy and drug stores in Bangladesh; findings and implications

“…Encouragingly for patients, prices of essential antibiotics in private pharmacies in Bangladesh, including model stores, were not much higher than international prices in a recent study by , with only limited price increases between 2003 and 2019 44 . The increase in cases with dengue 21 , and the continued challenges with tuberculosis in Bangladesh, with patients typically seeking help from non-qualified practitioners before seeking help from qualified professionals, also needs addressing [45][46][47][48] . Encouragingly, whilst there are still cases of malaria in Bangladesh, co-ordinated activities have reduced these by more than 50% in 2016 versus 2010 49 .…”

Determinants of Care-Seeking Practices for Children with Sickle Cell Disease in Ekiti, Southwest Nigeria

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