Assessment of routine screening of pediatric contacts of adults with tuberculosis disease in Tanzania

Abstract

Setting: Ten selected healthcare facilities in Tanzania, March–April 2016.Objective: To assess the implementation of screening among pediatric contacts of adults with tuberculosis (TB) disease.Design: Using a mixed-methods approach, we conducted a questionnaire study among sputum smear-positive adult TB patients and abstracted data from their patient cards to assess the implementation of a child contact management (CCM) intervention. We also conducted in-depth interviews with healthcare workers (HCWs) to solicit their views on clinical practices and challenges in CCM.Results: A total of 141 adult smear-positive TB patients reported 396 children living in households; detailed information on 346 (87.4%) was available. Only 37 (10.7%) children were clinically assessed for TB, 5 (13.5%) were diagnosed with TB, and 22 started on isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT) (59.0%). Of the 320 children whose caregivers responded to whether their children had undergone human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) testing, 55 (17.2%) had been tested and one (1.8%) was HIV-positive. Forty-one HCWs described passive CCM without use of contact or IPT registers.Conclusion: We identified gaps in the implementation of TB screening, IPT provision, and HIV testing in pediatric contacts of adults with sputum smear-positive TB. Systematic efforts, including increasing HCW training and educating the community, may improve implementation.