Objective To explore the awareness of TB among general public and health provider, the care-seeking pathway of TB patients and suspects, and problems existing in the current referral management.
Methods Qualitative(individual interv iew, observation, and focus group discussion)and quantitative(questionnaire survey)methods in selected 2 villag es out of 2 townships of 3 poverty counties with high TB prevalence but low case detection.
Results In the remote poor and underdeveloped ar eas, financial difficulty and underdev eloped education resulted in lowawareness of TB knowledge, esp.women and the elder.Community people had high financial bur den for care-seeking.Lack of capacity in TB control team and coordination between medical system and disease prevention system was apparent.
Conclusion It's necessary to increase case detection and quality of treatment and manag ement with the demand of various kinds of health promotion activities targeted to different people and quality training for TB staff.
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