An Audit of Tuberculosis Clinic Register In A Tertiary Health Care Centre In South West Nigeria

Abstract

Introduction: Tuberculosis remains the commonest infectious disease world wide. It accounts for over 1million deaths globally; most
of this in the sub-Saharan Africa. The DOTS program is an iniative of the WHO towards reducing the burden of this disease. We present an audit of our TB register in other to compare with the WHO goal.

Method: Data were extracted from the TB register of the hospital from January 2007-December2010 and these were entered into SPSS 17 for analysis. Continuous variables were summarized using mean and standard deviation (for normally distributed variables) and median and quartiles (for non-normally distributed variables). Group differences for categorical variables were evaluated using the chi-square at 5% level of significance.

Results: 302 cases were seen during the period in question 173 males (57.3%) and 129 females (42.7%) with a mean age of 36.97±16.4.
Majority, 287 (95%) had pulmonary TB while only 15(5%) had EPTB. Smear positivity for acid-fast bacilli was present in 76(25%) of cases. 121(40.1%) had co-infectivity with HIV. Treatment outcome showed 244(80.8%) were pronounced cured while 14(4.6%) had a relapse. 44 of the patient died of various complications accounting for a mortality of 14.9% while 12(4%) defaulted.

Conclusion: TB remains an important disease in Nigeria. Mortality from this disease is still high despite the fact that it is a treatable condition. There is need for more advocacies towards prevention and adherence to standard treatment.