Journal of North Khorasan

Background & Objectives: Tuberculosis is a bacterial disease that gets created by Mycobacterium Tuberculosis. Pulmonary tuberculosis constitutes more than 80% of the Tuberculosis cases. Despite the availability of effective treatment for pulmonary TB, sputum smear negative time course of patients affected by various factors is not as expected. The aim of this study was to examine the factors affecting patient’s in North Khorasan province.

Material and Methods: It is a historical cohort study, in which all of the smear-positive pulmonary TB cases in North Khorasan province from 1384 to 1393 were enrolled. Information of patients was extracted from the software for patients’ registration, as well as registered documents TB available in the health centers. The relationship between negative sputum smears time course and effective factors was determined by ordinal regression and with the outcome of the treatment was determined by multiple linear regression.

Results: At the end of the second month of treatment, sputum smear negative rate was 72.6%. Addiction in people increased the chance of negative sputum smear at the end of sixth month (OR: 3.151) (p = 0.034). Basil density also had a significant correlation with sputum smear negative duration (p<0.001).

Conclusion: The findings showed that the negative sputum smears time course for patients at the end of the second month of treatment, was not get the expected amount of treatment for TB patients in the study population.