ABSTRACT
One of the most serious problems for tuberculosis (TB) control is non-adherence to TB treatment. We studied the factors influencing non-adherence to TB treatment in Indonesia to inform TB treatment adherence strategies. We con- ducted semi-structured interviews with non-adherent patients and key informants in Jepara, Central Java, Indonesia. Three major themes were found in reasons for non-adherence to TB treatment: 1) knowledge about TB, 2) knowledge about TB treatment and 3) choosing and changing a health care treatment facility. Respondents had an inadequate knowledge about TB and its treatment. Feeling healthy and having financial problems were the most common reasons for TB treatment non-adherence. Respondents sought treatment from many different health care providers, and often changed the treatment facility location. TB treatment adherence might improve by providing better education about the disease and its treatment to those undergoing treatment. Providing information about where to receive treatment and that treatment is free could also improve compliance.
Subject(s)
Antitubercular Agents/therapeutic use , Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice , Medication Adherence/psychology , Tuberculosis/drug therapy , Adult , Aged , Antitubercular Agents/administration & dosage , Directly Observed Therapy , Female , Humans , Indonesia , Interviews as Topic , Male , Middle Aged , Patient Education as TopicABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Much of European primary care is computerised and many groups of practices pool data for research. Technology is making pooled general practice data widely available beyond the domain within which it is collected. OBJECTIVE: To explore the barriers and opportunities to exploiting routinely collected general practice data for research. METHOD: Workshop, led by primary care and informatics academics experienced at working with clinical data from large databases, involving 23 delegates from eight countries. Email comments about the write-up from participants. OUTPUTS: The components of an effective process are: the input of those who have a detailed understanding of the context in which the data were recorded; an assessment of the validity of these data and any denominator used; creation of anonymised unique identifiers for each patient which can be decoded within the contributing practices; data must be traceable back to the patient record from which it was extracted; archiving of the queries, the look-up tables of any coding systems used and the ethical constraints which govern the use of the data. CONCLUSIONS: Explicit statements are needed to explain the source, context of recording, validity check and processing method of any routinely collected data used in research. Data lacking detailed methodological descriptors should not be published.
