Educational counselling of patients with combined TB and diabetes mellitus: a randomised trial
OBJECTIVE: To describe the effect of educational counselling on patients’ knowledge about TB (transmission, treatment, risk factors) and DM (symptoms, treatment, complications, healthy lifestyle), adherence to medication, and to assess characteristics associated with knowledge.
DESIGN: All patients received counselling and were then randomised to either structured education on TB-DM, combined with clinical monitoring and medication adjustment (intervention arm), or routine care (control arm). Knowledge and adherence were assessed using a questionnaire.
RESULTS: Baseline and 6-month questionnaires were available for 108 of 150 patients randomised (60/76 in the intervention arm and 48/74 in the control arm). Patients knew less about DM than about TB. There was no significant difference in the proportion with knowledge improvement at 6 months, both for TB (difference of differences 14%; P = 0.20) or for DM (10%; P = 0.39) between arms. Intervention arm patients were more likely to adhere to taking DM medication, with fewer patients reporting ever missing oral DM drugs than those in the control arm (23% vs. 48%; P = 0.03). Higher education level was associated with good knowledge of both TB and DM.
CONCLUSIONS: Structured education did not clearly improve patients’ knowledge. It was associated with better adherence to DM medication, but this could not be attributed to education alone. More efforts are needed to improve patients’ knowledge, especially regarding DM.
Keywords: Indonesia; adherence; knowledge; people living with diabetes; pulmonary TB
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: 1: Research Center for Care and Control of Infectious Disease, Universitas Padjadjaran, Bandung, Indonesia, Department of Internal Medicine, Radboud Institute for Health Sciences, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands 2: Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, Centre for International Health, University of Otago Medical School, Dunedin, New Zealand 3: Research Center for Care and Control of Infectious Disease, Universitas Padjadjaran, Bandung, Indonesia, Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Padjadjaran/Dr Hasan Sadikin General Hospital, Bandung, Indonesia 4: Research Center for Care and Control of Infectious Disease, Universitas Padjadjaran, Bandung, Indonesia, Department of Biomedical Science, Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Padjadjaran, Bandung, Indonesia 5: Research Center for Care and Control of Infectious Disease, Universitas Padjadjaran, Bandung, Indonesia 6: Department of Internal Medicine, Radboud Institute for Health Sciences, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
Publication date: December 21, 2021
Public Health Action (PHA), The Union's quarterly Open Access journal, welcomes the submission of articles on operational research. It publishes high-quality scientific research on health services, providing new knowledge on how to improve access, equity, quality and efficiency of health systems and services.
The Editors will consider any manuscript reporting original research on quality improvements, cost-benefit analysis, legislation, training and capacity building, with a focus on all relevant areas of public health (e.g. infection control, nutrition, TB, HIV, vaccines, smoking, COVID-19, microbial resistance, outbreaks etc).
- Editorial Board
- Information for Authors
- International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease
- Public Health Action
- Ingenta Connect is not responsible for the content or availability of external websites
Receive new issue alert- Access Key
- Free content
- Partial Free content
- New content
- Open access content
- Partial Open access content
- Subscribed content
- Partial Subscribed content
- Free trial content