Prevalance of Pulmonary Tuberculosis in Patients Visiting National Tuberculosis Centre

Abstract

Tuberculosis is a main public health problem all over the world. On an average one third of the world’s population is infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis and problem of being in a state of existence disease. Tuberculosis remains a major threat in developing country like Nepal. Most of the cases occur in south-east Asia and Africa. This study mainly aims to find prevalence in terms of age, sex and to assess the knowledge tuberculosis. The study was analytical and hospital based conducted from December 2019 to February 2020 in National Tuberculosis Centre in Bhaktapur. During the study period a total of 765 sputum samples were collected and examined in the laboratory of National Tuberculosis Centre using fluorescence microscopy to detect the Mycobacterium and to assess the knowledge a total of 100 suspected patients were interviewed with closed ended questionnaire with multiple responses. Among the suspected patients, 73 (7%) showed positive with acid fast bacillus (AFB) and males (62%) were found to be more infected than female (38%) which was statistically insignificant (χ xii 2 =0.903, P> 0.05). The highest prevalence was found in age groups 51-60 (22.64%) which was statistically significant (F=39.6, P<0.05) between ages. There is mixed response showing good knowledge in affected parts and symptoms with statistically significant association (F=12.594, P<0.05) in the views of male and female. In general there is inadequate knowledge in terms of causative agent, preventive measures and treatment duration. Effective strategies must be implemented to bring equality to seek health behavior in males and females are required. Strategy with major focus on cultural and social bias must be integrated to bring more people aware of the disease.