Abstract

INTRODUCTION- India is the second-most populous country in the world but unfortunately, one fourth of the global incident TB cases occur in India annually. Tuberculosis treatment need multi drug combination to eradicate tuberculosis bacteria. Inability to complete the prescribed regimen, is an important cause of treatment failure, relapse, acquired drug resistance and continuous transmission of infection. OBJECTIVES -1. To study the sociodemographic characteristics of pulmonary tuberculosis patients under RNTCP. 2. To study the factors associated with non adherence to ATT among them. MATERIALS AND METHODS -This study was a cross-sectional study, in which 93 patients of pulmonary tuberculosis who were non adherent to ATT were interviewed. Information regarding their personal and socio demographic data, treatment history and reasons for non adherence to ATT was obtained. Data was entered in Microsoft Excel and percentages were calculated. RESULTS -In our study, majority of the non adherent patients were in the age group of 30-60 years, residents of rural area (72%), illiterate (76.3%) and from lower or upper lower socio-economic status (76.3%). Maximum patients (36.5%) stopped their ATT during 3rd month. adverse effects of ATT (54.8 %) was the most important reason followed by feeling of early improvement (32.8 %) and then family problem (31 %), loss of work (20.4 %), and stigma related (19.3%). CONCLUSION -Various reasons given by patients as causes of non adherence, mostly reflected the influence of poor background coupled with illiteracy and ignorance.