Effects of short term tuberculosis treatment under direct supervision on the performance indicator of national tuberculosis control programme, gazan, 1438 h

Tuberculosis is still a health problem of global concern, WHO estimates that there is two millions deaths annually and eight millions new cases of TB and encourages all countries to adopt all strategies to control TB and Directly Observed Therapy Short Term (DOTS) is one of these strategies. Therefore, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia adopted the implementation of DOTS in 2000 at facility level and then at community level in 2013. This is a descriptive study aims at identifying the effect of DOTS implementation at community level on the national tuberculosis program indicators. The main question of the study is that: what is the effect of CBDOTS on the national TB program performance indicators? The data were collected with two well-constructed and pre tested questionnaires with well-trained data collectors. Moreover, it includes all the registered patients in in national tuberculosis registry in 2011 and 2014 and all the health workers in the program. It is found that there is no statistical significant difference between the program indicators before and after the implementation of directly observed therapy short term at community level, and there are many administrative factors affecting the program performance such as the absence of policies, procedures and strategic planning. The study recommends the upgrading of the policies, procedures and the strategy to cope with the global movement towards TB elimination, updating and expanding of the laboratory net for TB diagnosis, implementing the quality measures especially in laboratory services and ensuring all the financial resources for the strategy implementation.