Barriers and facilitators of tuberculosis treatment among immigrants: an integrative review

Migration, as an important social determinant in the field of health, plays a crucial role in the non-eradication of tuberculosis worldwide. Therefore, it is essential to identify the factors related to tuberculosis treatment in immigrants to effectively combat this disease. However no comprehensive study has focused on this issue. Therefore, this study was conducted using an ecological approach to identify the barriers and facilitators of tuberculosis treatment in immigrants.

This qualitative study utilized an integrative literature review. Studies were searched without time restrictions in database such as MEDLINE, Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), Google Scholar, Scopus, and EMBAS, as well as internal databases like Scientific Information Database and Magiran. The findings of 100 studies that met the inclusion criteria were analyzed using the conventional content analysis method based on the ecological approach.

In general, the aforementioned codes were placed into four main categories, including individual factors (i.e., biological factors, psychological factors, behavioral factors, patient knowledge, factors related to tuberculosis, and economic factors), interpersonal factors (i.e., communication with the treatment team and family-related factors), factors related to health service provider centers (i.e., medical facilities), and extra-organizational factors (i.e., social factors and health policies).

The findings of the present study show that treating tuberculosis in immigrants is a complex phenomenon influenced by several factors. Therefore policymakers and healthcare providers should take a more comprehensive look at the factors affecting treatment in this group of patients to plan and implement more effective interventions.