The demographic characteristics and social factors affecting the interruption of tuberculosis treatment: a review study

One of the main challenges in controlling tuberculosis is the interruption of tuberculosis treatment, which occurs under the influence of various factors including social ones. The aim of this study was to determine the demographic characteristics and social factors affecting the interruption of tuberculosis treatment based on studies conducted in the last ten years.

This study was carried out by reviewing studies published in Pub Med, Scopus, Google scholar, SID and Magiran from 2009 to 2019. The main English keywords were Interruption of Tuberculosis Treatment and their equivalent Persian translation was also used for searching Persian studies. From among 575 surveyed studies, a total of 56 were considered appropriate from which data were obtained. Demographic characteristics and social factors were extracted from each study.

The most common demographic characteristics related to the interruption of tuberculosis treatment were being male, low educational level, unemployment and low income .The most common social factors affecting the interruption of tuberculosis treatment included problems associated with the health care system, addiction, stigma, poverty, and lack of social support.

Apart from the problems related to the health care system, what makes it difficult to control tuberculosis is the social context, which remains unchanged and has a negative effect on the persistence of the disease and the difficulty of treating it.