Evaluation of Knowledge of MDR-TB among Medicine Training Doctors in Tertiary Care Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan

Tuberculosis is the oldest documented infectious diseases in humans and they still cause significant morbidity and mortality. Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is a growing hazard to human health worldwide and threat to control of tuberculosis. WHO estimates 3.2% incidence of MDR TB in new cases. MDR-TB new cases are created each year by a combination of poor patient compliance with treatment and physician error. The purpose of the study is to determine the status of knowledge and awareness amongst the medicine resident about the very basic knowledge of MDR-TB and need to strengthen teaching about tuberculosis to postgraduates so the objective of the study is to determine the frequency of knowledge of MDR –TB among medicine residents (postgraduate trainees) at a tertiary health care hospital Karachi. It is a descriptive based cross sectional study. 58 post graduates trainees were included. A simple questionnaire about MDR-TB was asked to fill in 30 minutes, each correct response will be given 10 marks and those who score 70% will be labeled as knowledgeable. The primary outcome measure was the frequency of knowledge of MDR –TB among medicine residents (postgraduate trainees) at a tertiary health care which turned out to be 65.5% knowledge among postgraduate trainees. So we concluded that there is a need of further studies with larger sample size and follow up studies after educating the trainees more of senior levels so that identification of predictors of mortality, so as to timely diagnose, intervene and hence prevent morbidity and fatalities. It is, therefore, important to develop continuous health education to improve TB knowledge and awareness at different levels.