Health-related quality of life among tuberculosis patients under Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme in rural and urban Puducherry

- Patients with tuberculosis have significantly lower HR-QoL than compared to non-TB controls.
- After 6 months of DOTS therapy, large improvements in all HR-QoL domains were found among TB patients.
- DOTS treatment significantly improved HR-QoL almost to the levels of non-TB controls.
- After successful treatment of TB, HR-QoL scores of TB patients were comparable to that of the general population.
- Therefore in future, TB patients should be counselled about the importance of DOTS and also efforts should be made to counsel and motivate their family members to ensure family support throughout the treatment period.

BackgroundGlobally, tuberculosis (TB) continues to be the major public health problem. Limited research is carried out on the impact of the disease on health-related quality of life (HR-QoL). The study aims to assess the HR-QoL among TB patients during and after Directly Observed Treatment Short-course (DOTS) therapy and to compare the HR-QoL of these patients with matched neighbourhood controls.MethodologyA community-based longitudinal study was conducted in Ariyankuppam and Bahour communes of Puducherry from January 2014 to April 2015. 92 TB patients registered for DOTS therapy during January-June 2014 were interviewed in their DOTS centres during first visit using the SF-36 questionnaire to assess their HR-QoL. During the second visit, 9 TB patients were lost to follow-up; therefore, a total of 83 patients were interviewed in their houses and, simultaneously, 83 matched neighbourhood controls were interviewed. Non-parametric tests were used to compare the HR-QoL scores. p value <0.05 was considered as statistically significant.ResultsThe mean HR-QoL scores had improved among TB patients upon completion of DOTS (80.8 ± 20.3), when compared to HR-QoL scores (48.3 ± 30) during treatment with significant difference. The HR-QoL scores of TB patients after DOTS completion (80.8 ± 20.3) had improved to levels comparable to that of non-TB controls (77.5 ± 29.1) without significant difference.ConclusionHR-QoL of patients suffering from TB was low. However, the study provides evidence that DOTS treatment offers a demonstrable improvement of HR-QoL among TB patients almost to the level of general population. The findings can be used in advocating the effectiveness of DOTS in TB control efforts.