Impact of tuberculosis treatment on health-related quality of life of pulmonary tuberculosis patients: a follow-up study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: At present, much of the attention within tuberculosis (TB) management is spent on microbiological cure, and its impact on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is either undervalued or seldom considered. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of TB treatment on HRQoL of new smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) patients. Moreover, we also aimed to determine whether the selected socio-demographic and clinical variables were predictive of variability in the HRQoL scores over time. METHODS: This was a prospective follow-up of new smear positive PTB patients who were diagnosed at the chest clinic of Penang General Hospital between March 2010 and February 2011. All eligible patients (i.e., a new case of smear positive PTB, literate and aged 18 years or above) were asked to self-complete the SF-36v2 questionnaire at the start of their treatment, and then subsequently after the intensive phase and at the end of the treatment. A score on a health domain or component summary measure that was less than 47 norm-based scoring (NBS) point was considered indicative of impaired function within that health domain or dimension. Likewise, an individual having mental component summary (MCS) score ≤ 42 NBS point was considered to be at the risk of depression. Repeated measures ANOVA test was performed to examine how the summary scores varied over time, and to determine whether independent variables were predictive of variability in the physical component summary (PCS) and MCS scores over time. RESULTS: A total of 216 patients completed the SF-36v2 questionnaire at the start of their treatment. Out of these, 177 and 153 completed the questionnaire at the second and third follow-ups, respectively. The mean PCS scores at the start of the treatment, after the intensive phase and at the end of treatment were 41.9 (SD 5.1), 45.8 (SD 4.8) and 46.0 (SD 6.9), respectively. Similarly, the mean MCS scores at the start of the treatment, after the intensive phase and at the end of the treatment were 39.9 (SD 7.3), 45.0 (SD 6.8) and 46.8 (SD 7.8), respectively. More than 23% of the patients were at the risk of depression at the end of their TB treatment. Patient's age and being a smoker were predictive of differences in the PCS scores. Similarly, monthly income, being a smoker and TB-related symptoms at the start of the treatment were predictive of differences in the MCS scores. CONCLUSION: Although HRQoL improved with the treatment, the scores on component summary measures showed compromised physical and mental health among study patients even at the end of their TB treatment.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".