Patients' perception regarding the influence of individual and social vulnerabilities on the adherence to tuberculosis treatment: a qualitative study.

BACKGROUND: Tuberculosis remains an important disease which mainly affects the majority of vulnerable individuals in society, who are subjected to poor living conditions and difficulties to access the services of public health. Under these circumstances, the present study aims to understand patients' perception in relation to the influence of individual and social vulnerabilities on the adherence to tuberculosis treatment. METHODS: A qualitative descriptive cross sectional study was conducted in one large municipality at the state of Paraíba, Northeast of Brazil. The study subjects, who were residents of the study site, covered all tuberculosis cases diagnosed between March and June 2015. The sample was defined by the criteria of response saturation. All interviews were audio recorded, and data analysis was developed through the hermeneutic dialectic method and the theory of Generative Route Sense. The project was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the University of São Paulo (USP). RESULTS: A total of 13 individuals were interviewed and the responses were identified into two analytical categories: the difficulties they had and the enabling factors they could mention during their tuberculosis treatment. Patients brought up social exclusion as an obstacle to treatment adherence, which, along with stigmatization, weakened their link with family members and health professionals. Moreover, economic precariousness was a major hindrance to the maintenance of a proper diet and transportation access to health centers. However, social support and directly observed treatment helped to break down barriers of prejudice and to promote individual and family empowerment. Finally, patients also reported that their will to live and faith gave them the strength to continue with the treatment. CONCLUSIONS: According to patients in this study, social support and the strengthening of links with family members and health professionals may reduce social exclusion and other difficulties they face, thus encouraging them to the adhere to tuberculosis treatment.

Occurrence of tuberculosis cases in Crato, Ceará, from 2002 to 2011: a spatial analisys of specific standards.

OBJECTIVE: to analyze the spatial distribution of tuberculosis in Crato, Ceará, Brazil, from 2002 to 2011, aiming to check for a point pattern. METHODS: This is an ecological, temporal trend and hybrid design study, with a quantitative approach. A total of 261 cases of tuberculosis were geo-referenced and 20 (7.1%) were considered as losses due to the lack of address. The profile of patients in 10 years of study was in accordance with the following pattern: men aged between 20 and 59 years, with low schooling, affected by the pulmonary form of tuberculosis and who were cured from the disease. RESULTS: The analysis of the spatial distribution of tuberculosis points out that in the period of study, new cases of the disease were not distributed on a regular basis, indicating a clustered spatial pattern, confirmed by the L-function. The map with the density of new cases estimated by the Kernel method showed that the "hot" areas are more concentrated in the vicinity of the central urban area. CONCLUSION: The study allowed pointing out areas of higher and lower concentration of tuberculosis, identifying the spatial pattern, but it also recognized that the disease has not reached all of the population groups with the same intensity. Those who were most vulnerable were the ones who lived in regions with higher population densities, precarious living conditions, and with intense flow of people.

[Satisfaction of hypertensive users with primary health care services in Brazil: a validation study]. / Satisfação dos usuários hipertensos com os serviços da rede de atenção primária no Brasil: um estudo de validação.

OBJECTIVE: To validate an instrument to evaluate the level of satisfaction of hypertensive adults with hypertension control services in the context of primary health care in Brazil. METHODS: The study was carried out in 2009, in two municipalities located in Northeast Brazil. A probabilistic sample of 725 adults was selected among participants of the Ministry of Health hypertension control program (Hiperdia). Sixty-five Likert-like items were initially developed guided by the Primary Care Assessment Tool (PCATool), distributed in eight primary care dimensions (health status of confirmed hypertension case, access to diagnosis, access to treatment, adherence, services provided, coordination, focus on family, and community guidance). The process of validation covered consultation with specialists, validation of the Likert-like choices, exploratory factorial analysis, analysis of internal consistency, and confirmatory factorial analysis. RESULTS: Forty-five items that satisfied all criteria were confirmed and used in the final scale. The instrument's validation study revealed high overall internal consistency (Cronbach a = 91.5%) and high internal consistency in each of the eight dimensions (> 70%). All reliability and validity indicators show that the evaluation of user satisfaction level with the proposed instrument is valid and reliable. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed instrument can be reproduced and used with adult hypertensive individuals receiving primary health care in other regions of Brazil.

[Blood pressure control and adherence/attachment in hypertensive users of primary health care]. / Controle pressórico e adesão/vínculo em hipertensos usuários da atenção primária à saúde.

This is a population-based, descriptive, and analytic study conducted with a randomized and probabilistic sample comprising 340 hypertensive individuals representative of the Family Health Strategy (FHS) Service in Joio Pessoa, PB, Brazil. The present study corresponds to the first part of a cohort started in 2008. The instrument used was an adaptation of the Primary Care Assessment Tool revalidated in Brazil. Logistic regression was used to investigate the associations between blood pressure (BP) control, sociodemographic variables, and an indicator of adherence/ attachment. Among the 340 hypertensive participants, 32.6% were followed up at the FHS, and 89.1% exhibited satisfactory adherence/ attachment. The older adults were more likely to control BP, which suggests a more accurate self-care perception and greater adherence to treatment. The present study highlights the problem posed by the control of hypertension by means of the assessment of services. We expected the present model to be applied at other locations to generate parameters to compare different municipalities.

[Implementation of the DOTS strategy in the control of TB in Paraiba: between the political commitment and the involvement of the teams of the family health program (1999-2004)]. / Implantação da estratégia DOTS no controle da Tuberculose na Paraíba: entre o compromisso político e o envolvimento das equipes do programa saúde da família (1999-2004).

The scope of this paper is to analyze the implementation of the Directly Observed Treatment Short-Course (DOTS) strategy in the control of tuberculosis, from the standpoint of the coordinators of the Tuberculosis Control Program (TCP) in six priority municipalities in the state of Paraíba, Brazil. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven TCP coordinators. Five municipalities proved to be DOTS success points achieving a 90% cure rate. Among the DOTS weak points in the political dimension, the following aspects were identified: lack of continuity of the TCP coordinator position; lack of preparedness of the local team; precarious technical-administration structure and insufficiency of the laboratory network. In the operational dimension, the search for respiratory symptoms by the Family Health Teams is still low. Changes of an epidemiological, operational and political nature have been incorporated, though the implementation and guarantee of the sustainability of DOTS in the State depends on the way the health services are organized and on the manager's political commitment to support the strategy.