Survival Analysis of Loss to Follow-Up Treatment among Tuberculosis Patients at Jimma University Specialized Hospital, Jimma, Southwest Ethiopia

Abstract

Background . Tuberculosis (TB) patients who do not complete treatment pose a potential public health risk through disease reactivation, increased transmission, and development of drug-resistance. This study is aimed at analyzing the time to loss to follow-up treatment and risk factors among TB patients. Methods . This was a retrospective cohort study based on record review of 510 TB patients enrolled in Jimma University Specialized Hospital. The Cox’s proportional hazard model and Kaplan-Meier curves were used to model the outcome of interest. Loss to follow-up was used as an outcome measure. Results . Out of 510 TB patients, 69 (13.5%) were lost to follow-up (LTFU) treatment. The median times of survival starting from the date of treatment initiation were 5.7 months. The majority of LTFU patients interrupted treatment during continuation phase. Treatment LTFU has an association with HIV status, weight, and residence. However, living in the rural area has a cause for LTFU patients on multivariate analysis (HR 4.4, 95% CI 1.58–12.19). Conclusions . High rate of LTFU was observed among TB patients in Southwest Ethiopia. Treatment LTFU was more frequently observed among patients who came from rural areas. This underlines the need for distributing TB treatment to the rural area.