Alcoholism and other socio-demographic risk factors for adverse TB-drug reactions and unsuccessful tuberculosis treatment – data from ten years’ observation at the Regional Centre of Pulmonology, Bydgoszcz, Poland

BACKGROUND Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the most dangerous infectious diseases and has one of the highest mortality rates. For decades a strong association has been evident between certain socio-economic factors and TB adverse events and failure of treatment, yet there is a limited quantity of literature available on this subject, especially in the Polish literature. MATERIAL AND METHODS We examined epidemiological data from 2025 TB patients treated at the Regional Centre of Pulmonology in Bydgoszcz, Poland between 2001 and 2010. This article focuses on the association between all forms of unsuccessful TB treatment outcomes or adverse drug reaction (ADR) and socio-demographic characteristics, condition on admission, and other biological, clinical, social, and healthcare access factors. RESULTS The rate of TB-ADR during hospitalization was 38.9%. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that age (P<0.001) and alcohol abuse (P=0.007) were independently associated with the occurrence of TB-ADR. The rate of unsuccessful TB treatment was 10.5%. After adjusting for confounding variables, age (P<0.001), alcohol abuse (P=0.002), and education (P=0.01) were significantly associated with unsuccessful treatment. Smoking did not have any significant influence on occurrence of either TB-ADR during hospitalization or unsuccessful treatment. CONCLUSIONS Among our TB patients treated between 2001 and 2010, alcohol abuse significantly worsened the treatment outcome. This information will be crucial in developing strategies targeted at this demographic group.