Assessment of Health Related Quality of life in drug resistant tuberculosis patients and the challenges to drug adherence with symptomatic screening for active pulmonary tuberculosis infection among these patients and their household residents.

The approval of the Institutional Ethics committee will be obtained toconduct the study. After obtaining permission from the district tuberculosisofficer the TB register at District tuberculosis office (DTO) will be referredand the list of eligible patients registered under RNTCP Udupi district from2013 onwards will be obtained and their TB register numbers will be collected.Also the DTO will be requested to share the information about the DR TBpatients with the respective PHC Medical officer and the respective area ANM.With the help of ANM the patients will be traced and visited. Patient detailswill be obtained from PHC. The subject who are non-traceable will be excludedfrom the study.  A face to face interviewwill be conducted using a pre tested semi structured questionnaire to gatherthe information regarding socio demographic characteristics, treatment andfollow up details and substance abuse after obtaining written informed consent.The confidentiality about the identity and the information collected will beensured. The HRQoL of the patients will be assessed using SF-36, a validatedquestionnaire and also the information regarding the challenges towards drugadherence during their course of therapy will be collected followed bysymptomatic screening of patients and available household contacts for Chestpain , Cough with expectoration ,Coughing up blood ,Fever, Loss of appetite,Unexplained weight loss. Symptomatically positive subjects referred to thenearest Designated Microscopy Centre (DMC) for further evaluation. Theevaluation status of symptomatically positive patients will be confirmedtelephonically from the respective Primary Health Centre. Patients who are notavailable at the time of first visit for interview will be given second visitand patient who is unavailable even at the time of second visit will be termedas non-respondents. The information about subjects who have died postcompletion of treatment due to any cause will be obtained from the respectivePHC medical officer and the household members will be contacted and will bescreened symptomatically.