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[Pulmonary symptomatic tuberculosis' diagnostic delay study]
M N Altet Gómez1, J Alcaide Megías, J Canela Soler
1Unidad de Enfermedades del Tórax. Barcelona. Spain. med025494@saludalia.com
Objective:
To study symptomatic pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) diagnostic delay.
Patients And Methods:
Prospective study of new symptomatic PTB cases (aged > or = 15 years) by structured interview with the patients and their families. The main variables analyzed were patient's delay (PD), doctor's delay (DD), diagnostic process delay (DPD), health care system delay (HCSD) and total delay between the onset of symptoms and start of treatment (TD). Univariate and multivariate statistical analyses were performed for each component of delay.
Results:
Two hundred eighty-seven patients were studied. The mean delays in days standard deviations were TD 81.8 77.3; PD 43.3 55.7; DD 28.4 59.6; DPD 10.0 17.7, and HCSD 38.5 62.5.
Conclusions:
Patients are responsible for 50% of excess delay in diagnosing symptomatic PTB. Patients in the health care system experienced diagnostic delays over 60 days in 18.5% of cases, doctors being responsible for 75% of the diagnostic delay attributable to the system.