Abstract

Introduction: India is the highest TB burden country accounting for one fourth (26%) of global incidence. In India tuberculosis accounts for 17.6% of deaths from communicable diseases. Social problems like poverty , poor housing, malnutrition ,addiction & co-morbidities like Diabetes Mellitus,HIV make this scenario more grave. Age-old stigma associated with tuberculosis leading to social isolation and in turn negative approach to seek medical care. With the above backdrop a study was conducted to find out the socio-demographic characteristics among tuberculosis patients attending a DOTS centre of a slum of Kolkata along with social stigma and discrimination experienced by these patients. Methods: Study was conducted in six months period with 111 registered patients at DOTS centre of UHC, Chetla in a cross sectional way. Results:Most of the study population was in productive age group ,literacy level was not satisfactory, belonging to poorer section of society ,underweight prevalence was high, with problems of inadequate ventilation ,illumination and overcrowding . Majority of them (67.5%) were newly diagnosed and of the retreatment cases, only 33% had completed the treatment before. Though all of them informed their family about the disease,27.5% & 36.3% did not disclose it to friends & neighbours respectively.Forty-four percent of them experienced discrimination, mostly from neighbours.Conclusion: For a successful control of tuberculosis, awareness generation regarding its prevention, management and the fact that it is completely curable is very essential. If such message is rooted among all, then stigma and discrimination related to this disease will disappear from the society