Association between concern about COVID-19, social support and knowledge about tuberculosis with adherence to antituberculosis treatment in Lima, Perú

Introduction: In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, information on factors associated with adherence to antituberculosis treatment in areas with high prevalence of tuberculosis is scarce.

Objetive: To evaluate whether there is an association between social support, concern about COVID-19 infection and knowledge about tuberculosis, and non-adherence to antituberculosis treatment.

Materials and methodos: A cross-sectional study was carried out on patients under antituberculosis treatment, from January to March, 2022, in centers located in areas with a high prevalence of tuberculosis in Lima. We used the Morisky Green-Levine questionnaire to assess adherence to treatment as the dependent variable; the independent variables were evaluated using the Medical Outcomes Study Social Support Survey for perceived social support and concern about COVID-19 infection, and the Battle Test to assess patients’ knowledge about their disease. We used Poisson regression with robust variance to evaluate the association between the independent variables and the dependent one.

Results: Out of 101 participants (73.3% male with an average age of 35.1 ± 16 years), 51.5% were non-adherent to antituberculosis treatment. Medium or high level of concern about getting COVID-19 was associated with a higher prevalence of non-adherence to treatment (odds ratio: 1.68; 95 % confidence interval: 1.09-2.57) (adjusted for considered confounding variables).

Conclusions: Non-adherence is a frequent condition among patients living in an area with a high prevalence of tuberculosis in Lima, especially among those with a higher concern for COVID-19 infection.