Abstract

MENDES, Aderlaine de Melo  and  FENSTERSEIFER, Lísia Maria. Tuberculose: porque os pacientes abandonam o tratamento?. Bol. Pneumol. Sanit. [online]. 2004, vol.12, n.1, pp.27-38. ISSN 0103-460X.

It is a descriptive, explanatory study, with quantitative focus, developed in connection with the Tuberculosis Service of the Health Center IAPI, in Porto Alegre, RS, between January and February of 2003. Objectives: To analyze the causes of the non-compliance to the treatment; establish some characteristics of the patients that abandoned the treatment of Tuberculosis; compare information about the abandonment of the treatment registered in the promptuaries, with information obtained with the patients. The population of the study is composed by 340 patients registered in the Tuberculosis Control Program since the start of the Service, in July of 2000 until January of 2002. The sample is composed by 25 cases of Tuberculosis from men and women - 22 pulmonary smears positive, 1 pulmonary smears negative and 2 non-pulmonary - who discharged for abandonment. The majority of the universe of patients discharged as a result of their cure, and the masculine discharge for abandonment is statistically significant. The average age of the sample was 30,48 years. Associate aggravations, as the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome and Alcoholism atracted important attention. The majority made use of Rifampin, Isoniazid and Pirazinamid with average time of use of 3,69 months. The registered reasons of abandonment in the promptuaries and verbalized by the patients included, between others, the Financial- Economic reason and the treatment of the TB. Even if the Program ended the case as discharge for abandonment, the communication process between the Service and the patient should not have an end.

Keywords : tuberculosis; abandonment; non-compliance.

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