Delay on care-seeking and influencing factors among adolescent tuberculosis patients in Dongguan City from 2009 to 2018 / 中国学校卫生

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To analyze the characteristics and influencing factors of care-seeking delay of adolescent tuberculosis patients in Dongguan City from 2009 to 2018, so as to provide theoretical basis for the tuberculosis control.@*Methods@#The study participants were 8 899 adolescent tuberculosis patients in Dongguan from 2009 to 2018. The Rank-sum test and multiple linear regression were used to analyze the influencing factors of care-seeking days, and the χ 2 test and Logistic regression were used to analyze the influencing factors of care-seeking delay.@*Results@#The median care-seeking days among adolescent tuberculosis patients were 18(6-46) days in Dongguan City from 2009 to 2018, and the prevalence of the care-seeking delay was 56.6%. Multiple linear regression indicated that care-seeking delays were positively associated with being women (B=0.20), living in rural areas (B=0.10), pathogen-positive patients (B=0.69), patients from 2014 to 2018 (B=0.21), and junior school students (B=0.98). Multivariate Logistic regression indicated that care-seeking delay were positively associated with being women (OR=1.35, 95%CI=1.23-1.47), living in rural areas (OR=1.21, 95%CI=1.08-1.37), pathogen-positive patients (OR=2.51, 95%CI=2.26-2.79), patients from 2014 to 2018 (OR=1.24, 95%CI=1.14-1.35), junior-school students (OR=7.58, 95%CI=1.45-39.65), high-school students (OR=5.26, 95%CI=1.04-26.52), university students (OR=7.06, 95%CI=1.39-35.99), and non-students (OR=5.23, 95%CI=1.05-26.08)(P<0.05).@*Conclusion@#The prevention and control of tuberculosis among adolescent patients in Dongguan urgently needs to be strengthened. In the future, attention should be paid to the prevalence of care-seeking delay among female, rural, and student tuberculosis patients, and a reasonable prevention and control policy for adolescent patients should be formulated.