Determinanet of the survival pattern of tuberculosis patients treated under directly observed treatment short course at Pawe Hospital, Ethiopia

Abstract

Tuberculosis (TB) is still a public health problem and amongst the top 10 leading causes of death. The objective of this study is to analyze the survival time of TB patients and identify the risk factors that influence their survival in Pawe Hospital during the treatment period. The data for this study are obtained from TB patients registered books from September 2009 to January 2010 under Directly Observed Treatment, Short-course (DOTS) at the health centers in Pawe Hospital. The analytical methodologies used were the Kaplan-Meier to estimate the survival time and Cox's regression model to identify the covariates that have a statistically significant effect on the survival longevity of TB patients. The estimation of the model parameters was done by partial maximum likelihood procedures. The multivariate analysis of the Cox regression model gives that age, category (patient category), initial weight and HIV status have statistically significant effects on the survival longevity of TB patients. On the other hand, sex, marital status, and history of previous treatment have no impact on the survival experience of TB patients. The study shows that 84.5% of the patients were still alive at the end of 8 months of anti-TB treatment. Based on the result of the study, different factors are identified for the death of TB. Patients recommended that TB co-infected people should have