Attitudes to compliance with tuberculosis treatment among women and men inVietnam

SETTING: A Study carried out in 1996 in four districts representing south a nd north as well as urban and rural areas of Vietnam. OBJECTIVE: TO explore gender differences in knowledge, beliefs and attitude s towards tuberculosis and its treatment, and how these factors influence p atients' com; pliance with treatment. DESIGN: Sixteen focus group discussions were performed by a multi-disciplin ary research team from Vietnam and Sweden. Analysis was performed using mod ified Grounded Theory technique, specifically evaluating gender differences . RESULTS: Women were believed to be more compliant than men. Insufficient kn owledge and individual cost during treatment were reported as main obstacle s to compliance among men (poor patient compliance), while sensitivity to i nteraction with health staff and stigma in society (poor health staff and s ystem compliance) were reported as the main obstacles among women. CONCLUSIONS: it is time to adopt a more comprehensive and gender-sensitive approach to compliance, which incorporates patient compliance, doctor compl iance and system compliance, in order to fully support individual patients in their efforts to comply with treatment.