THE LEVEL OF KNOWLEDGE OF TUBERCULOSIS PATIENTS ABOUT DISEASE AND THE SOCIETY S ATTITUDE TOWARDS TUBERCULOSIS PATIENTS IN TURKEY

CORRESPONDING AUTHOR:
Murat Yalcinsoy,
Baglarbasi mah,
Ataturk Cad, Maral sok,
Yunus emre, Apt No. 7/7,
Maltepe/Istanbul/Turkey.
Email: mrtyalcinsoy@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT: INTRODUCTION: We aimed to investigate of patient’s knowledge, attitude and behavior about tuberculosis and society's attitude towards tuberculosis patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The patients were asked to answer a questionnaire regarding their knowledge about tuberculosis that is composed of 14 questions (general, infectivity, diagnosis, treatment; 3-3-3-5 questions respectively) in the first hours of their hospitalization and the answers were evaluated. RESULTS: 145 tuberculosis patients (female/male, 46/99; mean age 35, 6±13, 7) were enrolled in the study. The ratio of the patients who knew the disease was contagious, transmitted by saliva driblets and tuberculosis vaccine prophylaxis was 84%, 83%, and 95% respectively. Eighty-two percent of patients knew about the tests necessary for the diagnosis correctly. Eighty-one percent of patients knew the tuberculosis treatment would take 6-9 months with four different drugs. In society's attitude questions, 35% patients that declared they were struck professionally by their disease, 37% of patients answered as “my relations with my work friends went downhill ”, 42.9% of patients answered as “I was afraid of getting fired”, 14.3% of patients answered as “ I got fired”. CONCLUSION: The preliminary information of the participating patients was approved good enough by a total information score of 80.4±16.1%. Although the patients knowledge level were high, because of problems faced by the society suggests that education should be given more importance.

KEYWORDS: Tuberculosis, survey, knowledge score.