Threats and Interventions During the Treatment of Tuberculosis in an Inner-city District

Since there are active drugs against tuberculosis (TB), the most effective control measures are to assure treatment adherence and to perform contact tracing. Given the long treatment duration and characteristics of some TB patients, threats that put at risk treatment adherence may appear. Identify and address them is essential to achieve the objectives of disease control.

To identify the epidemiological characteristics of TB patients and the incidents and threats occurring during treatment, to describe the interventions performed to enhance treatment adherence and to determine if there are differences among native and foreign-born patients in the TB clinical unit of a referral hospital in the inner city of Barcelona.

A descriptive, observational, cross-sectional study was performed. We recorded information on sociodemographic and clinical characteristics, incidents and interventions during treatment in all patients with TB diagnosed between September 2013 and August 2016.

172 patients were included, 62.2% were foreign-born. The most common incidents and threats were medication-related complications (43.0%), missed follow-up visits (34.3%), communication problems (25.6%), comorbidities complications (23.8%), trips (19.2%), fear of social rejection (16.9%) and change of address (14.5%). The adherence-promoting interventions were: follow-up calls, directly observed treatment, medical and humanitarian reports, extra visits and cultural mediation. Incidents and interventions were more frequent in foreign-born patients, however there were no differences in treatment success among Spanish and foreign-born.

In this inner city several incidents occurred during TB treatment that can threaten adherence and are more common among foreign-born patients. Coordination among professionals from different healthcare settings was able to overcome obstacles in most cases and achieve TB treatment completion.