Notified or missed cases? An assessment of successful linkage for referred tuberculosis patients in South India

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Although tuberculosis (TB) is a notifi able disease in India, most of the cases of TB are either not recorded or reported. Among diagnosed cases, for improving reporting, proper feedback on referral outcome needs to be ensured to all health care providers who refer cases to the public health system. Materials and Methods: All the received feedbacks for TB patients referred for treatment from July 2013 to December 2013 were analyzed. Feedback reports including referral date, the age and sex of patients, type of disease, and date of treatment initiation were examined. Results: Of the total 1,259 referred TB patients during the study period, feedback was received for 54% of them. Only 42.3% ( n = 532) of the referred patients were successfully linked at the treatment facility. Seven (0.6%) referred patients died before the initiation of treatment while 3.7% migrated, 2.4% gave the wrong address, 1.0% started private treatment, and 0.6% were nontraceable; in 3.2% cases only was the TB number given. Feedback was signifi cantly associated with sex, age group, type of treatment, disease type, and place of residence. Conclusion: The feedback received for referred patients was poor and for improving the care of TB patients, there is a need to strengthen the feedback mechanism in Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP) for referred patients.