Rights and responsibilities of tuberculosis patients, and the global fund: A qualitative study

• Published in: PLoS ONE
• Main Author: Atif M.; Javaid S.; Farooqui M.; Sarwar M.R.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science 2016
• Online Access: https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84962374042&doi=10.1371%2fjournal.pone.0151321&partnerID=40&md5=1cfbbb0d6c3883476fd58cc44176c78a

Background: Implementation of the Charter to protect patients' rights is an important criterion to achieve patient-centered approach and receive financial support from the Global Fund. Our study aims to explore the knowledge of tuberculosis (TB) patients about their rights and responsibilities at the Chest Disease Unit of the Bahawal Victoria Hospital, Bahawalpur, Pakistan. Methods: This was a qualitative study. The data from purposefully selected TB patients was collected by in-depth interviews. Eligibility criteria included confirmed diagnosis of TB and enrollment in the TB program. A pilot tested interview protocol was based upon the objectives of the study, and was used uniformly in each interview to maintain the consistency. The sample size was limited by applying the saturation criteria. All interviews were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim. Inductive thematic content analysis was applied to analyze the data and draw conclusions. Results: Out of the total 16 patients, four were female, and seven were illiterate. Eight patients were known cases of multi-drug resistant TB. Analysis of the data yielded seven themes; tuberculosis care services, moral support and stigmatization, dignity and privacy, complaints, fear of losing job, information sharing and compliance to the treatment plan, and contribution to eradicate TB. First five represented the rights section while latter two were related to the responsibilities section of the Charter. Conclusion: Discriminatory access to TB care services and the right to privacy were two major concerns identified in this study. However, the respondents recognized their responsibilities as a TB patient. To ensure uninterrupted investment from the Global Fund, there is a need to implement fair TB care policies which support human rights-based approach. © 2016 Atif et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.