Major Delays in the Diagnosis and Management of Tuberculosis Patients in Nepal

Background: Early diagnosis is a determining factor for spread of tuberculosis. Delay in diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis geometrically increases spread and infectivity of the disease and is associated with higher risk of mortality. Aim: The present study aimed to investigate the length of delays in diagnosis and treatment among new pulmonary tuberculosis patients in central development region of Nepal. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted by administration of structured questionnaire interview and reviewing the medical records of the new sputum smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis cases during January– May 2015. Simple random sampling was applied to select samples from 5 districts of 19 districts comprising at least one each from 3 ecological regions of Nepal. Results: A total of 374 new sputum smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis cases were included in the study. The median patient delay, health system delay, and total delay were 32 days, 3 days and 39.5 days respectively. The unacceptable patients delay was 53.21% (95% CI: 48.12-58.29) of all new patients, whereas it was 26.74% (95% CI: 22.23-31.24) for the unacceptable health system delay and the unacceptable total delay was 62.83% (95% CI: 57.91-67.75). Conclusion: TB diagnosis and treatment is still a significant problem of Nepal. Majority of unacceptable delays were from patients. Identifying factors influencing delays and developing evidence-based approaches to address those delays will help in advancing tuberculosis prevention and management in lowincome settings.