Prevalence and risk factors of mycobacterium tuberculosis among patients attending Amana Region Referral Hospital, Dar es Salaam

Abstract

Tuberculosis (TB) is an ancient disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) and its one of the world’s deadliest disease with one third of infected individuals falling ill each year especially in many developing countries. A cross-sectional study design was carried out to determine the prevalence and risk factors of Mycobacterium tuberculosis among patients attending Amana regional referral hospital, Dar es Salaam. Participants were patients registered in Tuberculosis and leprosy laboratory at Amana regional referral hospital, Dar es Salaam from March to July 2022. A total of 395 sputum samples were collected and examined for the presence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis of which 89 were positive constituting to prevalence of 22.53%. This current study reported high prevalence in males 63/273 (23.07%) compared to females with 26/122 (21.31%). A large proportion of these positive cases were between age group of 71-80 years with 3(60%). This current study reported that smoking had the highest odds ratio (OR=1.94; 95% CI: 1.13, 3.30) indicating smokers had the highest chance of contracting Mycobacterium tuberculosis that was seen to be significant with p. value = 0.015. Malnutrition and TB history was reported to have positive association with the infection (OR=1.45; 95%CI: 0.48, 1.54) and (OR=1.29; 95%CI: 0.78:2.15) respectively. However, the association to causing MTB infection was insignificant because the p-values were greater than 0.05 (i.e. p = 0.151 and p = 0.321) respectively. Other risk factors such as drug abuse, education levels, residence, diabetes mellitus, alcohol and HIV were reported to have low odds ratio that was negatively associated with MTB (i.e. OR<1, p>0.05). The study showed that the prevalence of patient infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis at Amana regional referral hospital, Dar es Salaam was 89/395(22.53%). The risk factor associated with patient infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis at Amana region referral hospital, Dar es Salaam was smoking.