Assessment Of Prevention Behavioural Practices Among Adult Tuberculosis Patients In Eastleigh Division, Nairobi County, Kenya

ABSTRACT

Tuberculosis is a common and often deadly airborne bacterial infectious disease which usually targets the lungs (pulmonary TB) and affects any organ outside pulmonary parenchyma (Extra-pulmonary TB), and is a major cause of illness and death worldwide. It causes ill-health among millions of people each year and ranks as the second leading cause of death from an infectious disease worldwide, after the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). About one third of the world’s population is infected with TB; two-thirds of these cases estimated to occur among people aged 15–59 years, which, unfortunately, is the most productive age group. This has a negative effect on the economy because this group contributes greatly to the workforce. Approximately 9 million new cases in 2011 and 1.4 million TB deaths (990,000 were HIV negative people and 430, 000 were HIV-associated TB deaths) were reported. TB cases notified in Kenya were 99,159 TB cases in 2012 with more than 4000 deaths, thus making Kenya to be one of the 22 high TB burden countries in the world and the fifth highest burden in Africa. Kenya continues to treat an increased number of TB patients each year; however, widespread co-infection with HIV (close to 38 percent of new TB patients) makes TB treatment difficult. The aim of this study was to determine the level of knowledge, attitude and practice of preventive behavior towards tuberculosis among adult tuberculosis patients in Eastleigh Division, Nairobi County. The study population was TB patients attending TB health facilities in Eastleigh Division. The study design was descriptive cross-sectional study. Quantitative approaches through semi-structured questionnaires were used to collect data on demographic, awareness, knowledge, attitude and practice of preventive behavior among adults, where a systematic random sampling (n=384) of respondents was used for the study. Descriptive statistical method was used to summarize and analyze the data using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 20. Associations between knowledge, attitude and practice levels were analyzed using Chi-Square. A total of 78.8% were aware of pulmonary tuberculosis, few were aware of extra-pulmonary TB. A total of 51.6% of the respondents had high knowledge level on TB, while 48.4% had low knowledge level on tuberculosis. On attitude level 54.4% of the respondents had negative attitude while 45.6% had positive attitude. A total of 67.2% of the respondents had high practice of prevention behaviour towards TB. Educational status was significantly associated with TB knowledge (P=0.001), occupation (P=0.006), and religion (P=0.001) while nationality of the respondents was associated with TB knowledge (P=0.001). Gender was associated with practice of prevention behavior towards TB (P=0.062) and education level was associated with practice of preventive behavior towards TB (P=0.001). The study also established that Muslim religion was associated with attitude towards TB (P=0.041) while knowledge was associated with attitude towards TB (P=0.045). The result also indicate that attitude was associated with practice of prevention behavior towards TB (P=0.029). Generally over all knowledge and attitude of TB patients about TB were low. So implementation of health education and awareness creation by using different mechanisms and further research are recommended. The findings of this study is valuable in informing prevention policy of tuberculosis programs at tuberculosis health facilities in Eastleigh Division, Nairobi County as well as enhance health education related to TB knowledge on causative agents and mode of transmission with the aim of reducing new tuberculosis cases.