Quality of care provided to tuberculosis patients in Armenia: How satisfied are the patients?

INTRODUCTION: Adherence to tuberculosis (TB) treatment as an important determinant for the successful cure of patients can be increased by focusing on patient satisfaction. The objective of this study was to evaluate patient satisfaction with TB services, different aspects of patient satisfaction, and demographic, health and treatment characteristics associated with satisfaction. METHODOLOGY: Overall 505 randomly selected TB patients that received treatment during 2014-2015 in Armenia underwent a cross-sectional telephone survey. Patient satisfaction items were selected from the Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire (PSQ-18). The Consultation and Relational Empathy (CARE) and Patient Enablement Instrument (PEI) were also used. Treatment adherence was assessed using the Morisky Adherence Scale. RESULTS: The respondents comprised 386 (76.4%) men and 119 (23.6%) women with a mean age of 45.5 ± 0.7 years. Nearly 99% (n = 500) of them were treatment-adherent. However, 45 (8.9%) mentioned the side effects as a reason for not following the treatment, revealing the non-adherence level of approximately 9%. About 93% of the patients were generally satisfied with the TB services, about 46% were satisfied with consultation and relational empathy and about 95% were satisfied with patient enablement. Being unsatisfied with TB services was associated with treatment non-adherence, inpatient treatment, drug-resistant TB, higher education, being unmarried, having a family income of below 50,000AMD (~120 USD) on average, being unsatisfied with consultation and empathy and place of residence. CONCLUSIONS: This study reports that TB patients are highly satisfied with TB care in Armenia. However, addressing specific characteristics associated with satisfaction may improve the TB program.