Care seeking behaviour and diagnostic processes in patients with smear-positive pulmonary tuberculosis in Malawi

SETTING: Government hospitals in five districts in Malawi. OBJECTIVE: To determine care seeking behaviour and diagnostic processes in patients newly diagnosed with smear-positive pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB). DESIGN: Structured questionnaires completed by interview between January to September 1998. RESULTS: During the study period 1518 patients were registered with PTB, of whom 1099 (72%) were interviewed. The median delay between onset of cough and diagnosis was 8 weeks. There was a variable pattern of care seeking beh aviour, with 70% of patients initially visiting a place of orthodox medical care and 30% visiting traditional healers, grocery shops, etc. Of these, 8 67 (79%) patients had one or more subsequent contacts for help, with these visits targeted more to orthodox medical care. At all stages, antibiotics r esulted in symptomatic improvement in up to 40% of cases. There was a media n time of 7weeks between cough and first submission of sputum specimens. Al most all patients received sputum smear results after a median length of 4 days; 474 (43%) of patients were only aware of their diagnosis at the time of receiving smear results, this observation being significantly associated with lack of schooling and not knowing another person with TB. CONCLUSION: More needs to be done to educate communities and non-orthodox c are providers about the diagnosis and treatment of TB.