Effectiveness of information education and communication on self efficacy health behavior and the regularity of directly observed treatment short course therapy for empowerment of tuberculosis patients

Abstract

Pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) is a contagious bacterial infection in the newlinelungs, which can spread to other organs. According to the CDC (Centers for newlineDisease Control and prevention), tuberculosis is one of the most common newlineinfectious diseases in the world. Although significant progress has been made newlineto eliminate this illness, 9 million new cases of tuberculosis were reported in newline2011.Tuberculosis is spread when an individual is exposed to a sneeze or newlinecough of a person suffering from the disease. TB can also be contracted if newlinesomeone has poor nutrition or living conditions. According to NTI (National newlineTuberculosis Institute-Bangalore), in some cases, the infection can lie newlinedormant in the body for years, and in others, it may become active and cause newlinemajor complications. The primary stage of tuberculosis has no symptoms, but newlineas the disease progresses, patients can suffer from bloody coughs, fatigue, newlinefever and weight loss. Various factors may affect the health care seeking behaviour of TB newlinesuspects. According to the literature, health care seeking is a dynamic newlineprocess that is influenced by socio-demographic, cultural and other factors. newlineThese factors affect the individual patients perceive their symptoms, create newlineconcepts and make decisions regarding their health care actions. Therefore, a newlinethorough analysis and understanding of the factors related to health care newlineseeking from these perspectives is warranted in order to improve TB control newlineprograme. Treatment of Tuberculosis (TB) is lengthy and psychologically newlinedemanding. To conceptualize the human behaviour, social cognitive theory newline(SCT) model is used. The main three factors used for understanding a newlinepatient s experience is observation of their behaviour, environmental and newlinepersonal factors and also considering of how these factors are correlating newlineeach other and influencing each other. Self efficacy beliefs are measured by newlinepsycho metric tools.