Health system delay among patients with TB in Taiwan
Chen, C.C., Chiang, C.Y., Pan, S.C., Wang, J.Y. and Lin, H.H., 2015. Health system delay among patients with tuberculosis in Taiwan: 2003–2010. BMC infectious diseases, 15, pp.1-9.
- TB diagnosis in Taiwan
largely relies on detecting symptomatic patients, enhanced by contact
tracing and active screening in high-risk groups.
- Health care workers
might miss TB due to its non-specific symptoms, increasing the risk of
delayed diagnosis and transmission.
- The decline in TB
incidence and less frequent encounters with TB cases might make clinicians
less proficient in recognizing the disease.
- Health System Delay
(HSD) is the time from the first consultation for respiratory issues to
the start of TB treatment.
- HSD has potentially
increased from 2003 to 2008 due to various factors like the complexity of
diagnosing TB and changes in the health care system.
- Factors affecting HSD
include the patient’s age, gender, type of health facility visited, and
regional healthcare provider density.
- Patients first consulting
at primary care clinics, or those visiting non-TB specialists, tend to
experience longer HSDs.
- Long travel distances
to treatment facilities and "doctor shopping" behavior also
contribute to extended HSD.
- Medical centers often
see longer HSDs due to higher rates of comorbidities complicating TB
diagnosis compared to district hospitals.
- Female patients and
the elderly might experience different HSDs due to earlier or subtler
presentation of symptoms.
- Regions like Eastern
Taiwan showed surprisingly short HSDs, likely due to higher density of
TB-specialized providers.
- The analysis indicated significant regional variations in HSD, affected by medical infrastructure and provider availability.
Comments
Post a Comment