Estimating and Explaining the Differences in Health Care Seeking by Symptom Burden Among Persons With Presumptive Tuberculosis: Findings From a Population-Based Tuberculosis Prevalence Survey in a High-Burden Setting in India
Author:
Giridharan Prathiksha12, Nagarajan Karikalan1ORCID, Selvaraju Sriram1, Frederick Asha3, Subbiah Esakkipriya1, Mani Sasikumar1, Thiruvengadam Kannan4, Selvavinayagam T S5, Padmapriyadarsini Chandrasekaran1ORCID, , Murugesan Havenesh, Rajendran Priya, Kumar Makesh, Krishnan Rajendran, Kumaran Paul, Chitra J, Rani V, Venkatesan L, Munivaradhan P, Nithyakumar D, Rameshbabu V, Venkatramana P K, Premkumar N, Joseph Rajkumar S V, Thangaraj T, Devanathan A, Balaji P, Bharath T K, Udayakumar J, Mathew Wilkingson, Arockia Doss John, Vasudevan A, Anbarasan K, Mahesh Kumar M, Kumaravel P, Chandrasekar P, Vasudevan K, Eswaran G, Krishna Bahadur R, Jeeva J, Duraivel E, Karunanidhi R, Kathiravan S
Affiliation:
1. ICMR–National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis , Chennai , India 2. Division of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, ICMR–National Institute of Epidemiology, Chennai, India 3. Directorate of Medical and Rural Health Services & State TB Cell , Chennai , India 4. ICMR–Regional Medical Research Centre , Port Blair, Andaman and Nicobar Islands 5. Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine , Chennai , India
Abstract
Abstract
Background
There is a lack of research evidence on the quantitative relationship between symptom burden and health care seeking among individuals with presumptive tuberculosis (TB).
Methods
Data were derived from a cross-sectional population-based TB survey conducted between February 2021 and July 2022 in 32 districts of India. Eligible and consented participants (age >15 years) underwent TB symptom screening and history elicitation. Fairlie decomposition analysis was used to estimate the net differences in health care seeking due to varied symptom burden—from 1+ burden (>1 symptom) to 4+ burden (>4 symptoms)—and decomposed by observable covariates based on logit models with 95% CIs.
Results
Of the 130 932 individuals surveyed, 9540 (7.3%) reported at least 1 recent TB symptom, of whom 2678 (28.1%; 95% CI, 27.1%–28.9%) reportedly sought health care. The net differences in health care seeking among persons with symptom burden 1+ to 4+ ranged from 6.6 percentage points (95% CI, 4.8–8.4) to 7.7 (95% CI, 5.2–10.2) as compared with persons with less symptom burden. The presence of expectoration, fatigue, and loss of appetite largely explained health care seeking (range, 0.9–3.1 percentage points [42.89%–151.9%]). The presence of fever, cough, past TB care seeking, weight loss, and chest pain moderately explained (range, 5.3%–25.3%) health care seeking.
Conclusions
Increased symptom burden and symptoms other than the commonly emphasized cough and fever largely explained health care seeking. Orienting TB awareness and risk communications toward symptom burden and illness perceptions could help address population gaps in health care seeking for TB.
Funder
National Health Mission, Tamil Nadu, India
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
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