Tuberculosis treatment outcomes in children and associated factors in health facilities of Shashemene town, Southern Ethiopia: A Cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background: Treatment outcome results serve as a proxy of the quality of TB treatment for children In Ethiopia, data on TB treatment outcomes in children are limited. The aim of this study was, therefore, to determine the magnitude of tuberculosis treatment outcome in children and associated factors in health facilities of Shashemene, Southern Ethiopia Methods: A cross-sectional study design was conducted from February 10 to March 10, 2019 at Shashemene town, Southern Ethiopia. Using a simple random sampling method, 390 registered TB patients who had known treatment outcomes were selected from Unit TB register logbook. The data entered to Epi Info version 7, and analyzed using SPSS version 23 the characteristic and the treatment outcomes of patients’ were summarized using descriptive statistics. Significant variables at p-value < 0.25 in the bivariate analysis were entered to multivariable logistic regression. Multivariable logistic regression model was used to find factors associated with tuberculosis treatment outcomes in children.Results: Out of 390 children, 201(51. 5%) were females, 138(35.4%) were under 5 years old, and 373(95. 6%) of them were new cases. Pulmonary smear-negative TB accounted for more than half 213(54.6%), EPTB accounted for 140(35.9%) and pulmonary smear-positive TB accounted for 37(9.5%). The overall treatment success rate was 356(91.3%). Among 390 patients, 25(6.4%) were cured, 331(84.9%) were treatment completed, 14(3.6%) were lost to follow up, 17(4.4%) were deaths, and 3(0.7%) were treatment failures. Age group 5-9 years (AOR = 0.362, 95% CI [0.138-0.950]), 10-14 years (AOR =0.354, 95% CI [0.130-0.963]), lost to follow up category of TB (AOR=8.166, 95% CI [1.437-46.410]), HIV positive sero-status (AOR =5.822, 95% CI [2.009-16.869]), and rural residence (AOR= 2.390, 95% CI [1.002-5.702] were independently associated with treatment outcomes. Conclusions: he treatment success rate was above End TB Strategy. The treatment outcome was considerably varied with age, HIV status and residence of the patient. Young children less than 5 years, HIV co-infected and those patients with rural residence needs follow up to reduce poor treatment outcomes among children.