Publication:

Screening for tuberculosis among sanitation workers in a tertiary care hospital, Delhi, India: a cross-sectional study

Background The surveillance of TB reduces disease transmission by shortening the duration of infectiousness and this reduces the incidence of TB infection and consequently contributes to reduced incidence of TB disease. The study aimed to screen for tuberculosis among the sanitation workers in a tertiary care hospital and assess the associated factors to provide the burden of tuberculosis among sanitation workers.

Methods The present study was conducted in Safdarjung Hospital, one of the largest Tertiary care hospital in India, located in the Southern part of Delhi. This was a cross-sectional study conducted among the sanitation workers currently employed in the hospital. 362 workers were included in the study using a convenient sampling (non-probability) method. The participants were interviewed with a pretested, semi-structured, semi-open ended questionnaire, which was based on the guidelines of screening of TB of Revised National Tuberculosis Control Program (RNTCP). The data was entered in Google forms and analyzed for completeness and cleaned for errors and missing values. Data analysis was done using licensed SPSS software version 21.0.

Results Out of total 362 workers who were screened for TB, 28 (7.7%) gave a positive history for presumptive TB. The symptoms reported among them were cough more than 2 weeks (85.7%), fever or night sweats more than 2 weeks (46.4%), significant weight loss (53.5%), hemoptysis (14.2%), and symptoms regarding EPTB (53.5%).

Conclusions It is important to protect the health care workers working in hospital setting as they are under higher risk and screening should be conducted at regular intervals.