Tuberculosis (TB), caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is the main cause of death worldwide, due to a single infectious agent (Mello, Silva, & Dalcolmo, 2018). Multidrug-resistant TB (MDR TB) is resistant to both isoniazid and rifampicin (the two standard TB drugs), and may or may not be resistant to other drug/s; hence, it (i.e., MDR TB) is a great cause of worry, and a major challenge to any TB control programme.
The objective of this cross-sectional study is to analyze the socio-demographic and the clinical profiles, along with some management indicators, of 23 MDR TB patients at the Domjur Block, Howrah District, West Bengal, India, in 2018. Thus, it is a twofold project with two sub-objectives.
One of the sub-objectives is to study the influence of six important criteria (viz., age, sex, religion, educational status, occupational status, and family income) related to the socio-demographic profile of 23 MDR TB patients at the Domjur Block, on the occurrence of MDR TB in that block, in 2018, using the binomial test at 5% level of significance. The corresponding formula for calculating the p-value (p1) is:
p1=2n!(n−X)! X!pXq(n−X) (1)
where, n=total number of MDR TB cases=23; X=n/2=11.5≈12;
p=proportion of cases corresponding to the first variable pertaining to a criterion; q=proportion of cases corresponding to the second variable pertaining to the same criterion.
If p1<0.05, for a criterion, then it can be inferred that the relevant criterion had a significant influence on the occurrence of MDR TB at Domjur; otherwise the influence was not significant.
The other sub-objective is to record data about the clinical profile of those 23 MDR TB patients, and some key indicators corresponding to the management of those patients by the health centre at the Domjur Block. The indicators are expected to help in understanding how the RNTCP (Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme) of the Government of India, was going on in that block, in 2018.
The Domjur Block was selected by the random sampling method among the blocks of the Howrah District. Before performing this study, a brief literature survey was done, but no work related to the MDR TB patients of Domjur, was found.
