Abstract

Tuberculosis (TB) is the world’s leading curable cause of infectious diseases mortality, with a disproportionate burden of the disease falling on low and middle income countries. In 2013, there was an estimated 9 million incident cases of TB globally and 1.5 million people died from the disease. The estimated number of cases occurred in Asia (56%) and Africa (25%), the incidence rates are highest, driven by high rates of HIV and malnutrition. Ethiopia is one of the high burden countries, reflected both in its TB incidence and the estimated rates of Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). With the occurrence of MDR-TB, little is known about the views of healthcare workers on this disease. The oblective of this study was to assess the knowledge, attitudes and practices of healthcare professionals towards prevention and control of MDR-TB at Boru Meda General Hospital, South Wollo Zone, North central Ethiopia. A cross sectional study was conducted by means of a semi-structured, self-administered questionnaire that was sent to all healthcare workers. The questionnaires were collected at the study site from March 22 to April 23, 2014. In all, greater than half (80.85%) of the respondents had good level of knowledge about MDR-TB; and the overwhelming majority of them held positive attitude (76.60%) towards patients with MDR-TB. In totality, 31.91, 74.11 and 66.35% of the respondents reported that they had their own copy of MDR-TB management guidelines; they used the protective masks and they were individually involved in educating patients about MDR-TB, respectively. Greater than half of the respondents had good level of knowledge about MDR-TB, but some of them held negative attitude towards patients suffering from MDR-TB. The attitude did not influence practices, but having good level of knowledge was positively associated with safer practices such as using protective masks, educating patients on MDR-TB, and referring to the MDR-TB guidelines manual.

Key words: Tuberculosis, knowledge, healthcare provider, attitude, practice, disease control, tuberculosis program, multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).