Evaluation of socio-demographic profile and basic risk factors of tuberculosis patients in South 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, India: a hospital-based study

Abstract

Aim: To study and analyse the socio-demographic profile and basic risk factors of tuberculosis(TB) patients and their relationwith the current epidemiological status of TB registered under the RNTEP program in the study area. Subjects and Methods: This prospective study was conducted on 1743 newly registered tuberculosis patients at TB-DOT centerof South 24 Parganas, West Bengal, India from 2011-2014. Socio-demographic variables and baseline characteristics of theparticipants were noted by a semi-structured questionnaire. Results: Our study results indicate that more than 95% of the TB patients were from lower socioeconomic class, and hadpoor literacy status and tuberculosis was observed highest in non-agricultural labour and cultivators. Among the young adult’smajority of the affected population were females from the lower/upper-lower socioeconomic class. Our analysis revealed that,in successful tuberculosis therapy, men were more defaulters than women. Conclusion: Our study provides a socioeconomic profile and the risk factors of tuberculosis in patients such as the status oftherapeutic intervention, involvement of other chronic diseases, age, sex and malnutrition. The findings of this study can beused to plan future studies with specific risk factors of the region and also for implementing the intervention and evaluating itseffectiveness.Keywords: Mycobacterium tuberculosis; socio-demographic factors; multi-drug resistance; pulmonary tuberculosis; extra-pulmonarytuberculosis.