Tuberculosis case management and treatment outcome: assessment of the effectiveness of Public-Private Mix of tuberculosis programme in Kaduna State, Nigeria.

BACKGROUND: In an effort to increase tuberculosis (TB) case detection, the Kaduna State TB program in Nigeria started Public-Private Mix (PPM DOTS) in 2002. This study assessed and compared the TB case management practices and treatment outcomes of the public and private health facilities involved in the TB program.
METHODS: A comparative cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out in 5 private and 10 public health facilities providing TB services for at least two years in the four Local Governments Areas in Kaduna State where both public and private health facilities are involved in the TB program. The heads of the health facilities were interviewed and case notes of all the 492 TB patients registered in these facilities between January 2003 and December 2004 reviewed.
RESULTS: Except for the lower use of sputum microscopy for diagnosis, adherence to national TB treatment guidelines was high in both private and public health facilities. The private health facilities significantly saw more TB patients, an average of 51 patients per health facility compared to 23 patients in the public health facilities. There was better completion of records in the public health facilities while patient contact screening was very low in both public and private health facilities, 13.1% and 12.2% respectively. The treatment success rate was higher among patients managed in the private health facilities (83.7%) compared to 78.6% in the public health facilities.
CONCLUSION: Private health facilities adhere to national guidelines had higher TB patient case load and better treatment outcome than public health facilities in Kaduna State. PPM-DOTS should be scaled-up and consolidated.