Characteristics And Influencing Factors Of Tuberculosis Patients In Liberia During 2015-2018

Objective:TB remains one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide.Millions of people continue to fall sick from TB each year.The objective of the study was to analyze the characteristics and influencing factors of different treatment outcomes of all tuberculosis patients and associated factors in Liberia utilizing a case study of Monrovia city,Liberia,to establish the relationship between TB treatment outcome and associated variables,to find out the effect of treatment outcome tuberculosis on communities and country and to recommend mitigating factors to prevent and control the TB better further.Methods:The 1208 TB patients participated in the National Leprosy and Tuberculosis Control Program in the capital of Liberia,Monrovia,from 2015 to 2018,Demographic data were collected such as gender,age,marital status,occupation,etc.through questionnaires and hospital records Life habits such as drinking,smoking.The clinical manifestation information such as CXR,tuberculosis site,sputum culture and tuberculosis symptoms were collected from the hospital.A retrospective study was conducted on the cure of tuberculosis.The count data were expressed in terms of rate or composition ratio.IBM SPSS 24.0 was used for statistical analysis.The comparison between groups was performed using thec~2 test to compare the differences in the cure status of tuberculosis patients with different characteristics.The multivariate analysis applied a binary classification Logistic regression model to assess the factors affecting the cure of tuberculosis patients in Monrovia,Liberia.The inspection level was set to?=0.05.Results:A total of 1208 patients with tuberculosis were investigated,of which 67(5.5%)were completely cured,660(54.6%)were cured and 239(19.9%)were cured before the end of the treatment period.87 patients(7.2%)died,155(12.8%)patients were discontinued,and the cure rate was 79.97%.Among the tuberculosis patients admitted to the hospital from 2015 to 2016,patients in the 30-44 age group accounted for a relatively high proportion,all of whom were above 50%.The differences in the cure rate of tuberculosis among the respondents of different genders,congestion,CXR,smoking,tuberculosis symptoms are statistically significant(p<0.05).The cure rate of female tuberculosis patients was 76.32%,lower than that of male patients;the cure rate of married tuberculosis patients was 78.97%,lower than that of single patients.Multivariate analysis showed that smoking(OR=6.670,p<0.001),was risk factors affecting the cure of tuberculosis in Monrovia,Liberia,and there was no family history of tuberculosis(OR=0.653,p=0.020)maybe its protective factor.Conclusion:1.From 2015 to 2018,the cure rate of tuberculosis in Monrovia,Liberia is79.97%,which is lower than the global average,and should be paid enough attention.2.The risk factors affecting the cure of tuberculosis in Monrovia,Liberia are smoking and family history of TB.To improve the cure rate of tuberculosis,smoking behavior should be controlled.