A Predictors Associated with Duration of Hospital Stay of Tuberculosis Patients, a Case Study at the Tamale West Hospital

Abstract

Tuberculosis is an infectious disease that usually affects the lungs. The Infection of the lungs is called pulmonary
Tuberculosis whiles infection outside the lung is called extrapulmonary Tuberculosis (TB). TB can be categorized as active
or latent. The paper looked at a total of 260 patients who were diagnosed of TB in the facility between March 2013 to
April 2019. Both Poisson and Negative Binomial distributions were used since it was a count data. It was meant to find
out the duration (days) of TB patients in the hospital and the predictors that may influence the length of stay. Earlier
analysis shows that, those who smoke as well as those who mostly involve in kitchen works were mostly affected. The
study identified gender of patients, age of patients, cost of treatment and location of patients as the predictors influencing
length of stay in that facility for the period under review. The study was in line with the study in US in which the mean
length of stay varied from 9 to 17 days where as this study had the mean of 14.7. It rather falling short of the cost when
the mean cost of treatment was approximately $80 whiles the mean cost of their study was $6,441. The study
recommended among the following that, District health facilities must be better equipped to avoid long travel distance
and look at the rising cost of TB treatments.