Factors associated with delayed diagnosis of tuberculosis in hospitalized patients in a high TB and HIV burden setting: a cross-sectional study

BMC Infectious Diseases

Research Article

Alice Mânica Müller¹  Denise Rossato Silva¹  Paulo de Tarso Roth Dalcin¹ 

[1] Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre. Rua Ramiro Barcelos, 2350 - Largo Eduardo Zaccaro Faraco - Bairro Santa Cecília -Porto Alegre, 90.035-903, RS, Brazil;

关键词: Tuberculosism;    Diagnostic delay;    Treatment delay;    Risk factors;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2334-12-57

 received in 2011-10-11, accepted in 2012-03-15,  发布年份 2012

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThe most essential components of TB control are early diagnosis and adequate treatment. Delay in the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis may result in more extensive disease and more complications, increase severity of the disease and is associated with higher risk of mortality. The purpose of this study was to identify factors associated with delayed diagnosis of TB in hospitalized patients.MethodsWe conducted a cross-sectional study in a general, tertiary care, university-affiliated hospital. Adult patients with TB that were hospitalized were identified retrospectively, and risk factors for delayed diagnosis were collected.ResultsThe median delay until diagnosis was 6 days (IQR: 2-12 days). One hundred and sixty six (54.4%) patients were diagnosed ≤ 6 days, and 139 (45.6%) > 6 days after admission. The main factors associated with diagnostic delay (> 6 days) were extra-pulmonary TB and negative sputum smear.ConclusionsAlthough hospitalization permits a rapid management of the patient and favors a faster diagnosis, we found an unacceptable time delay before the diagnosis of pulmonary TB was made. Future studies should focus on attempt to explain the reasons of diagnostic retard in the patients with the characteristics related to delay in this study.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Silva et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2012. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.