Setting
We conducted the study in three health facilities in Dar es Salaam. Dar es Salaam is located in the eastern part of the country, and is administratively divided into three districts namely Kinondoni, Temeke and Ilala, with respective populations of 1,083,913, 768,451 and 634,924 [10]. For operational reasons each district is regarded by the National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Control Program (NTLP) as a region [4]. The facilities included the municipal hospitals of Mwananyamala, Amana and Temeke. We selected Dar es Salaam purposefully because of its high TB burden.
Study design and data collection
We conducted a cross sectional hospital based study between October 2007 and June 2008. We enrolled all women with cough, attending family planning clinics and those who escorted their children for MCH services. To ensure that all women with cough were enrolled into the study, some of the data collectors were placed at the MCH and FP registration area, in such a way that every woman was asked if she had cough. Those with cough were directed to a study clinician. Those who reported cough, regardless of the duration, were regarded as TB suspects and therefore screened for TB by smear microscopy.
We trained study clinicians and other data collectors from FP and MCH clinics from the selected hospitals. We requested them to register all patients with cough in a study register and asked the patients to submit three sputum samples as per national guidelines[11]. Study registers contained information on patients' socio-demographic characteristics, cough duration in days or weeks and sputum results. Other information included other clinics of consultation for the current respiratory symptoms and number of visits made.
The standard procedure recommended by NTLP in the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis is to examine by smear microscopy all sputum samples from self presenting symptomatic patients [4]. None of the TB case detection activities are routinely conducted at MCH and/or FP clinics. This study was carried out at a time when the Central Tuberculosis Reference Laboratory (CTRL) was conducting quality assurance using Lot Quality Assurance System (LQAS). The results of all laboratories under the study were satisfactory. The quality check for the submitted samples was done according to routine NTLP guidelines [4].
We calculated the minimum sample size of 567 using Epi info version 6.4, statcalc computer software, with the assumption that total population of women aged 15–44 years in Dar es Salaam is 710,486 [10] and we wished to determine with 95% confidence interval (α error of 0.05) a prevalence range of 0.3% to 0.75% of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) among women aged 15 to 44 years in Dar es Salaam in 2005 [3].
Operational definitions
TB suspect: Any woman of reproductive age group with cough, regardless of the duration, who attended FP and MCH clinics.
Smear positive patient: a patient where at least two sputum samples were positive for acid fast bacilli [4].
Smear negative patient: a patient where all three sputum samples were negative for acid fast bacilli [4].
Ethical considerations
We were granted ethical clearance by the Tanzania Medical Research Coordinating Committee. We obtained informed verbal consent from each interviewee before enrolment into the study. Patients with one smear positive sputum sample were excluded from the analysis but they were referred to the district tuberculosis and leprosy coordinator (DTLC) for treatment and follow up using NTLP procedures. All patients with PTB were also referred to the DTLC for treatment. Non TB patients were treated according to their respective diagnosis.
Analysis
Data collected were double entered, cleaned and coded using Epi-info version 6 (Centre for Diseased Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, USA). We analyzed the data using SPSS version 14 for windows (SPSS Inc, Chicago, IL, USA). The outcome variable was diagnosis of smear positive TB. We calculated the proportion of patients with smear positive TB. We explored possible associations between cough duration and smear results, clinic of diagnosis, place of first presentation and number of visits made prior to diagnosis. We used Pearson chi-Square to compare group difference for categorical variables. Differences were considered statistically significant if p ≤ 5%. Finally, we estimated risk factors for smear positive by logistic regression with 95% (CI) given for odds ratios indicating statistically significant relationship if both values were above or below 1.