| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

MFMSO201207e02

Page history last edited by Pierre PLUYE 11 years, 10 months ago

Rubinowicz, A.  (2012). Evaluating the role of primary care physicians in the treatment of latent tuberculosis: a population study. McGill Family Medicine Studies Online, 07: e02.  http://mcgill-fammedstudies-recherchemedfam.pbworks.com/w/page/49944496/MFMSO201207e02  Archived by WebCite® http://www.webcitation.org/64lkK2Kty

 

 

Download File Here

 

Abstract

Background: Tuberculosis (TB) remains within the world’s most important infectious causes of morbidity and mortality among adults. There are close to 10 million new cases of TB annually and latent TB (LTBI) is the main source of new active cases. Treatment of LTBI is long and often results in poor treatment completion rates. Primary care physicians have been identified as playing an important role in LTBI treatment; however, how large a role they currently play and the impact of this have not been assessed.


Objective: To estimate the treatment completion rate in individuals receiving therapy for LTBI when the treatment is initiated by a primary care physician after controlling for initial health status and other patients characteristics.
Study design and population: The province of Quebec (Canada) provides TB treatment free of charge to all residents. The study population consists of all Quebec residents who have been prescribed, for 30 days or more, LTBI therapy between January 1, 1998 and December 31, 2005.


Data gathering: Using data from the regional health insurance board (Régie de l’Assurance Maladie du Québec), de-identified data was extracted from the beneficiaries database, the medical services database, the prescription claims database and the hospital services database (Med-Echo), all linked with a unique patient identifier. Basic descriptive statistics were done to describe the study population and determine the proportion of treatment initiated by primary care physicians. Regression modeling was used to determine what factors were significantly associated with completion rates including the type of prescribing physician.
Results: Twenty-six percent of all LTBI prescriptions during the study period were initiated by primary care physicians. This proportion decreased from 1998 (28.7%) until 2005 (21.1%). A total of 6 059 (41.1%) individuals completed the treatment. Individuals prescribed by primary care physicians were less likely to complete the LTBI treatment (OR: 0.80, 95% CI: 0.67-0.95).


Conclusions: More than half of patients treated for LTBI are still not completing the recommended regimen. Between a third and a quarter are initiated by primary care
physicians. The reasons why completion is less likely for those initiated by primary care physicians need to be investigated.

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.