Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices Towards Tuberculosis Among Clients Visiting Tepi General Hospital Outpatient Departments, 2019

Abstract

Background

Tuberculosis, which is an infectious disease, is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in developing countries. Ethiopia is facing high tuberculosis burdens. Even if it is preventable and curable, individuals’ KAP towards the disease is one of the bottlenecks in decreasing the disease burdens. TGH, located in the Sheka zone, is one of the remote areas and the KAP towards TB is unknown. Therefore, the current study was undertaken in TGH to assess the KAP towards TB.

Materials and Methods

A cross-sectional study was conducted among 415 randomly selected participants. A structured questionnaire was used to collect the data by a face-to-face interview from May 23 to June 23/2019. Data were entered into Epidata 3.1 and exported to SPSS version 21 for descriptive analysis.

Results

A total of 345 (83%) respondents have heard about TB, while 76 (18%) respondents said persistence productive cough as symptoms of tuberculosis. Only 9.9% of participants mentioned bacteria as the cause of the diseases and 170 (41%) considered that the transmission is via air droplets. The majority (70%) of participants responded that its transmission is not preventable and overall 236 (56.9%) had high overall knowledge about TB. Thirty percent of the respondents considered that TB is serious to the area while 29% considered TB is not very serious for them. Fifty-three percent of the participants were having a favorable attitude towards tuberculosis. The majority (85%) did not cover their mouth while coughing, while 79.5% did not screen for tuberculosis and 82% of participants have not received any health education about TB. Overall, 44.6% practiced TB prevention.

Conclusion

The majority of the study participants had high overall knowledge and positive attitude towards tuberculosis prevention, which are not seen in the practice of tuberculosis. Effective educational programs should be implemented to overcome the problem.

Keywords:

• knowledge
• attitude
• practice
• tuberculosis
• Tepi

Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to all study participants for their commitment in responding to questionnaires and all data collectors for their collaboration up to the end of the study.

Abbreviations

ETB, Ethiopian Birr; CDC, Center for Disease Control; HIV, human immune deficiency virus; KAP, knowledge attitude practice; SPSS, statistical package for social sciences; TB, tuberculosis; TGH, Tepi General Hospital; WHO, World Health Organization.

Author Contributions

All authors made a significant contribution to the work reported, whether that is in the conception, study design, execution, acquisition of data, analysis, and interpretation, or in all these areas; took part in drafting, revising, or critically reviewing the article; gave final approval of the version to be published; have agreed on the journal to which the article has been submitted; and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

Disclosure

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest for this work.