Assessment of Success Rate of Directly Observed Treatment Short-Course (DOTS) in Tuberculosis Patients of South India

Objective: To assess the success rate of DOTS for tuberculosis patients and the secondary objective was to identify the factors associated with unsuccessful treatment outcome. Methods: A retrospective study was conducted to review the medical records of patients (n = 1113) registered at the Directly Observed Treatment Short-Course (DOTS) clinic of Government Infectious Disease (Govt. ID) Hospital, Guntur, India. Multivariate logistic regression model was used to determine the factors associated with the treatment success rate. Results: The overall mean success rate of TB patients was found to be 82.8%. Treatment success rate (TSR) was steadily increased across the years from 73.9% in 2015 to 84.3% in 2016 and 88.9% in 2017 while the death rate was steadily decreased from 11.2% in 2015 to 6.25% in 2016 and 4.33% in 2017. Risk factors significantly associated with unsuccessful treatment outcome were found to be HIV positive (P P P P =0.008), and alcoholism (P=0.019). Smear positive patients had lower death rate (3.9% vs. 10.1%; P P P P Conclusion: Implementing the DOTS strategy proved the satisfactory success rate in the South Indian hospital across three years. The unsuccessful treatment outcome was significantly associated with gender, HIV status, re-treatment, smear negative, smoking and alcoholism. Key words: Directly observed treatment short-course, Retrospective study, Risk factors, Treatment success rate, Tuberculosis.