Diagnosis Delay among Newly Tuberculosis Patients Admitted in a Community Hospital

Objective: To determine the diagnostic delay in newly diagnosed tuberculosis (TB) patients admitted to a community hospital in Qatar. Design: The study was conducted from January 2013 today 2016. The following information was collected from patient file: Age, sex, nationality, tuberculosis type, time of symptoms onset, time of the confirmatory test, and the time of visiting an HCP before the admission encounter. Results: Of the 390 TB patients included in the study, 281 (72.1%) were from South East Asian countries, 325 (83.3%) patients were males and 65 (16.7%) were females, mean age was 32.4 years. Of the 390 patients, 89.7% (350 patients) had pulmonary tuberculosis and 40(10.3%) patients had non-pulmonary localization. The median total delay was 30 days (15;60 days), while the patient delay was 10 days (4;27 days) and the system delay was 3 days (3;7.8 days). For pulmonary tuberculosis, the total delay was 30 days and for non-pulmonary localization was 15 days. Conclusion: The study provides an insight about the delay in the diagnosis of TB at a community hospital in Qatar. Additional studies should be conducted to evaluate the delay in a representative national sample and to identify the factors associated with patients’ delays, which could be used to strengthen the national program for tuberculosis control.