Journal of Preventive Medicine

Lived Experience of Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis Patient; A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study

Introduction: Control of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis doesn’t rely only on the presence of effective drugs to cure it but also psychosocial and economic factors of the cases.

Methods: A hermeneutic phenomenological study design was used to explore the lived experience of patients with multidrug-resistant or extensively drugresistant tuberculosis at ALERT hospital on December 28, 2017. Purposive sampling technique was employed to recruit the study participants. A semi-structured interview guide was developed to undertake an in-depth interview. Open Code software version 4.02 was employed to make the analysis. Emergent codes were assigned to segments of the transcript that were relevant to the study objective. Finally, themes were developed from the categories. In reporting the findings, the consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (CORE-Q) were followed. Finally, the inter-relationship among codes, categories and themes were displayed using a diagram.

Results: Six categories were identified from the codes as contributors to psychosocial problems in MDR-TB patients. Those were; Apprehension about the economy for the survival of dependent family or self, phobia development against risk factors of tuberculosis, regretting about poor handling of life to protect self from tuberculosis, feeling hated or stigmatized, hopelessness and harm to the mind. These categories were then used to develop two major themes, namely, anxiety/depression, and intending revenge to transmit the disease to others.

Conclusion: Control of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis demands beyond the therapeutic treatment and thus, it needs to invariably include psycho-social and economic issues of the patients.

Author(s):

Abay Burusie, Tafesse Lamaro, Berhe Dessalegn

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