The primary objective of this study was to determine the factors influencing TB literacy among smear-positive pulmonary TB patients at the second month of treatment. The secondary objective was to investigate the difference in TB knowledge between patients with persistent sputum smear-positive and smear converted patients.The study was conducted as a cross-sectional study which involved 150 smear positive PTB patients. Patients’ knowledge of TB was assessed using a set of a pre-tested standardized questionnaire. Data were entered and analyzed using SPSS software version 24.0 for Windows (IBM Corporation, New York, United States). Descriptive data for continuous variables are presented as mean and standard deviation. Meanwhile, descriptive data for categorical variables are presented as frequencies and percentages. Data were analyzed by using binary logistic regression analysis. Overall, 26.0% (n= 39) of the patients had an unsatisfactory knowledge of Tuberculosis. Although the majority of the patients were aware that TB is infectious, many scored low for three critical aspects of stopping TB which were poor knowledge on the source of TB infection, the mode of transmission, and the correct preventive measures. Two factors which were gender (male: adj OR= 3.91, 95% CI= 1.09-14.00) and ethnicity (Chinese: adj OR= 10.24, 95% CI= 3.03-34.63; Immigrants: adj OR= 4.59, 95% CI= 1.10-19.12) were independently associated with unsatisfactory TB knowledge after controlling the age, gender, ethnicity, job and level of education. No significant difference was observed between the mean knowledge of patients with persistent sputum positivity (5.35±1.40) and those sputum converted TB patients (5.47±1.64) (crude OR= 0.95, 95% CI= 0.77-1.17, p=0.628). Gender and ethnicity were the independent factors that affected TB literacy. However, the TB literacy does not significantly associated with patients’ smear positivity at second month of intensive anti-TB treatment.
Tuberculosis, Pulmonary