Knowledge and Attitude toward Tuberculosis among Tuberculosis Patients Seeking Help in Diagnostic and Treatment Centers, Kabul Province in Afghanistan

Afghanistan is one of the 22 high TB burden countries and TB is a major public health problem. Current estimates show that the incidence of active TB cases is 278/100,000, mortality mounts to 15,000 cases/year (1) .Correct knowledge and positive perception of the patients towards TB, and its management is pillars of success in TB control programme in any TB burden countries. Several factors influence TB outcome that the treatment well management is the one of most important. Knowledge about general management of tuberculosis has well been recognized as an important factor influencing compliance with tuberculosis treatment. A low knowledge on tuberculosis is a likely cause of the delay in seeking treatment. Studies of the knowledge and attitude of tuberculosis patients about various aspects of TB in Af-ghanistan are lacking though TB is a major public health problem there. Our findings should enable the TB authorities to design and implement an intervention to the perception of TB in the community. This cross sectional study was conducted in DOTS implementer health facilities. The study was conducted among all the 285 patients aged +15 years currently under treatment for Pulmonary Tuberculosis, Kabul Province, Afghanistan. Patients were interviewed at the centers. Each interview was conducted at a time when patient came to receive anti tuberculosis treatment from the center. A questionnaire containing socio-demographic variables, knowledge and attitude of patients about the different event of tuberculosis was developed. Each interview lasted for about 30 minutes. The collected data was entered in SPSS 20 statistical package. Pearson Chi-square test was applied for testing associations between variables that, the distribution of knowledge and attitude was compared between categories of each socio-demographic variables, and general frequency of different variables, and descriptive analysis was done. A total of 285 patients (+15) years suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis were interviewed. The minimum, maximum and mean score of The association between knowledge with different age groups, gender, marital status, educational occupation and residency was significant; youngest age, male, single, literate employer and students and urban setting knowledge was higher than other relative groups. All variables such as education, genders, marital status, employee and residency with knowledge were significant relationship (P<0.001). The association between attitude with gender, Education and Occupation were significant (P<0.001); the female, illiterate and housekeeper attitude was higher than other groups. The observation in this study that chronic cough 272 (95.4%) was considered as the main symptom of TB …