Why tuberculosis patients in a health unit failed to persevere with their treatment

A problem which is impeding tuberculosis control in the Health Unit at Magdalena, Peru, as it does in any health service, is lack of regularity in attendance for treatment on the part of ambulatory patients, a large percentage of whom abandon their treatment. In 1967, the bronchopulmonary service in this health unit had several hundred patients; 90 per cent of these followed the course of treatment regularly. The other 10 per cent were recalcitrant.