Characteristics of pulmonary tuberculosis patients in Moses Kotane region North West Province, South Africa

Aim: To determine the characteristics of patients with pulmonary tuberculosis registered in primary health care facilities in Moses Kotane region North West Province. Method: A retrospective record review of pulmonary TB patients registered in five community health centres (CHCs) in 2010 was conducted. Results: Of the 229 new patients diagnosed using sputum microscopy or culture, 176 were cured and 53 were not cured. The mean age for cured patients was 36.4 years and 34.0 years for not cured patients with standard deviations of 13.5 and 11.4 respectively (p-value 0.195). In total, 97 (55.1%) female patients and 79 (44.9%) male patients were cured while 24 (45.3%) female patients and 29 (54.7%) male patients were not cured (p-value 0.214). Among the 169 unemployed patients, 120 (68.2%) were cured and 40 (75.5%) were not cured. Of the 69 patients with employment, 56 (31.8%) were cured and 13 (24.5%) failed to cure (p-value 0.394). Of 176 cured patients, 130 had directly observed treatment (DOT) support while 31 of 53 not cured patients did not have DOT support (p-value 0.00002). Some 154 (67.2%) patients were HIV positive and among them 119 (67.6%) were cured and 35 (66.0%) were not cured while of the 75 who were HIV negative 57 (32.4%) were cured and 18 (33.9%) were not cured (p-value 0.8680). Conclusion: DOT support was a strong predictive characteristic for the outcomes of these TB patients during their treatment with a statistically significant difference between cured and not cured patients; the majority of not cured patients did not have DOT support. Other characteristics like gender, age, HIV status, employment or other medical conditions did not show any statistically significant difference between cured and not cured patients.