Medical rehabilitation of leprosy patients discharged home in abia and ebonyi States of Nigeria.

OBJECTIVES To examine the extent to which medical coverage is available to discharged leprosy patients in communities. Evidence has shown that after care services, follow-up visits and national disease prevention programs are important components of medical rehabilitation to leprosy patients discharged home after treatment. Denying them accessibility to these services could expose them to multiple disabilities as well as several disease conditions including HIV/AIDS. These adverse health conditions could be averted if health workers extend healthcare services to discharged leprosy patients. This study was conducted to examine the extent to which discharged leprosy patients have access to healthcare services in the communities. METHODS All 33 leprosy patients who were fully treated with multi-drug therapy (MDT) and discharged home in the two leprosy settlements in Abia and Ebonyi States of Nigeria were included in this study. The list of discharged leprosy patients studied and their addresses were provided by the leprosy settlements where they were treated. Also, snowball-sampling method was used to identify some of the leprosy patients whose addresses were difficult to locate in the communities. Instruments for data collection were questionnaire, interview guide and checklist. These were administered because respondents were essentially those with no formal education. Analysis of data was done quantitatively and qualitatively. RESULTS Findings showed that 20 (60.6%) of discharged patients did not receive health programs like HIV/AIDS prevention or family planning. Also, follow-up visits and after-care services were poor. About 14 (42.4%) of the patients live in dirty and overcrowded houses. On the whole, discharged patients were poorly medically rehabilitated (mean score: 4.7±1.1 out of total score of 7). CONCLUSION Denying discharged leprosy patients opportunity of accessing health care services could increase prevalence of infectious diseases including HIV/AIDS among them. There is need to extend national prevention programs, follow-up visits, after-care services and free treatment to discharged patients in the communities.