Controle da tuberculose em contatos intradomiciliares: o papel dos serviços de saúde de Pelotas, RS

Abstract

Household contacts of index cases tuberculosis have an increased risk of developing the disease due to the closeness and the time duration of exposure to the bacillus. For this reason the evaluation of these individuals is decisive to controlling the disease, since the early diagnosis and timely treatment stop the transmission chain of the disease reflecting on the reduction of incidence rates. To this purpose there are protocols and targets proposed by the World Health Organization in which the health services should be based in the proper evaluation of the contacts. The study aimed investigate the health services that diagnosticate tuberculosis in Pelotas in relation to the service offered to household contacts of the index case. It consists of a descriptive, quantitative and transversal cut study linked to the multicentric project entitled "Delay in the diagnosis of tuberculosis: analysis of causes in different regions of Brazil". The study sample was composed of 85 index cases of tuberculosis interviewed in the origin study in Pelotas and their 163 household contacts. The collection of these data took place between July and December 2009 in the control of tuberculosis program in Pelotas and the collection of medical records has occurred in January 2011 in this same service. It was used the database research of the multicentric study and it was built a database in Excel software with the data from medical records. The analysis of data was performed using descriptive statistics. The results show that attention to tuberculosis in Pelotas need to be rethought with the of involving primary care in the evaluation of household contacts in order to facilitate early diagnosis, appropriate clinical evaluation of contacts and interruption of transmission chain of TB in appropriate time.