Saulat UIIah Khan, Shamshad Rasul Awan, Iffat Shabbir, Rizwan Iqbal, Nazir Mirza.
Non – compliance to treatment in Tuberculous patients.
Pak J Chest Med Jan ;10(3):31-4.

This study was under taken to find out the different reasons of non-compliance to treatment in tuberculous patients. The study was conducted at institute of Chest-Medicine, King Edward Medical College / Mayo Hospital, Lahore to know the frequency of different reasons of non-compliance. A questionnaire designed for this purpose was administrated to one hundred patients suffering from tuberculosis i.e. pulmonary & extra pulmonary tuberculosis who were defaulters. The commonest cause or reason of non-compliance were non realization of advantage/disadvantage of treatment i.e. lack of proper guidance (30%). People do not have any idea about the disease and its treatment. Other causes were side effects of drugs (13%), going to Hakims/traditional doctors (11 %). Non-affordability (10%) and complicated treatment regimen (10%), declared cured by doctors (10%), patient felt himself cured (7%) and patients discontinued treatment due to social reasons (9%). It was concluded that non compliance is common in patients with tuberculosis like any other prolonged illness & it should be addressed duly because compliance is directly related to the prognosis of the diseases. Efforts should be exerted to improve the compliance in TB patients by eliminating the factors leading to non compliance.

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