Strategy to Increase Awareness and Involvement of Private Medical Practitioners in RNTCP in Taluka Rahata of District Ahmednagar

摘要

Background: The global annual incidence of Tuberculosis (TB) is 9 million cases of which estimated 2.3 million cases occur in India. In many parts of India, the private sector has remained alienated from Directly Observed Treatment Short course (DOTS) implementation; hence, case detection has remained low. The performance of Taluka Rahata in terms of TB control was poorest before the year 2000; RNTCP was started in Taluka Rahata on 24 th March 2001. From 2001-2010, there was improvement in the performance but was not satisfactory. Hence, present study is an attempt to devise strategy, to increase awareness and involvement of private practitioners in Revised National TB Control Programme in a rural area of Rahata Taluka.Aim: To adopt strategies to improve the awareness and increase involvement of Private Practitioners about RNTCP in Rahata Taluka of Ahmednagar district.Setting & design: It is an Interventional study conducted in Rahata Taluka of District Ahmednagar from June to November by giving personal visits to all the Private Medical Practitioners of Rahata Taluka at their workplace.Materials and Methods: Personal visit was given to 143 private medical practitioners at their workplace. Workshop used as the major strategy was arranged as per RNTCP guidelines. Health education material was distributed. Statistical analysis: Tables, proportions, diagrams and standard error of difference between two proportions z-test. Results: Out of the 148 PMPs, 143 could be covered by giving personal visits to their clinic for pre-interventional assessment.110 (76.93%) were males while 33 (23.07%) were females. The mean age of PMPs was 41.60 y. Around 60 percentages of PMPs were non- allopathic practitioners. Sensitization workshop was attended by 132 PMPs. Though no significant difference was observed in their assessment regarding etiology about TB, a significant and highly significant value was obtained after assessing their KAP regarding their diagnosis & referral for sputum diagnosis, categorization and treatment, DOTS provider and TB case management.Conclusion: The PMPs due to its non-involvement and non- reinforcement are lagging with the update knowledge. The PMPs who have attained their higher qualification before implementation of RNTCP (before year 2001) are in majority unaware of RNTCP r ecommendations: Public-Private partnership involving PMPs & private hospitals need to be strengthened by additional inputs in the form of incentives, free IEC materials and periodic modular training in RNTCP