The importance of programmatic health actions in tuberculosis control: experience of a Primary Health Care Service in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Keywords:
Primary health care, tuberculosisAbstract
Introduction: Tuberculosis deserves special attention from health professionals and society. However, health services are not organized to attend these patients, and the prevalence of the disease remains high in the country. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the role of primary care in improving tuberculosis indicators with structured programmatic actions.
Methods: Data from patients diagnosed with tuberculosis linked to the Primary Health Care Service of the Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, attended in the health care services of the city, were analyzed and compared before (2002-2008) and after (2009-2012) the implementation of a Tuberculosis Control Program. The indicators were analyzed based on the goals established by WHO.
Results: One hundred and forty patients had tuberculosis between 2002 and 2012, 94 before the implementation of the Program and 46 after. With the Program, the annual number of tracked respiratory symptomatic patients and patients diagnosed with tuberculosis increased. Also, the diagnosis of tuberculosis in primary care services increased from 4.3% (n = 4) to 39.1% (n = 18) (p <0.001); and there was an improvement in cure (78.2% to 85.7%) and therapy dropout (9.3% to 9.1%) rates.
Conclusion: Our study showed that, after implementation of the Tuberculosis Control Program in the Primary Health Care Service of the Hospital de Clínicas dePorto Alegre, there was improvement in diagnosis of the disease, cure and treatment dropout rates, which have reached the cure rate goal established by the Ministry of Health.
Downloads
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).