Abstract
Background: Treatment default can foster emergence of drug resistant tuberculosis. This study was performed to analyze the trend of default and other treatment outcomes of patients with DOTS therapy in terms of relapse, failure and death. Methodology: A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out using records of all the 198 patients managed in the 2 year period (78 and 120 patients were reviewed in 2010 and 2011 respectively) at the Directly Observed Treatment Short-course (DOTS) Clinic of the Federal Medical Center Ido-Ekiti, Nigeria in year 2010. Information obtained from the hospital was entered into the SPSS computer software. Frequency tables and cross tabulations were generated and a p-value of less than 0.05 was statistically significant for the study. Result: There is an increase in the number and percentage of tuberculosis patients that consented to HIV test and a lesser number of patients’ defaulted treatment in 2011 (19.2%) as against 30.8% of patients that defaulted in 2010. Of the documented factors that affected treatment outcomes of the tuberculosis patients seen in the two years, consent for HIV testing had an overall statistically significant positive outcome. HIV co-infection is the only factor showing statistical significance out of the four factors affecting mortality in this study. Conclusion: Default rate is high. There is need to carry out an intervention to further minimize default rates and improve HIV testing among tuberculosis patients so as to set a template for good treatment outcome.