Impact of Nursing Interventions on Adherence to Treatment With Anti-tuberculosis Drugs in Children and Adolescents

Hospital Sant Joan de Déu Barcelona

Status: Completed

Conditions: Tuberculosis

Treatments: Biological: Eidus-Hamilton Test; Behavioral: A written questionnaire; Behavioral: A follow-up telephone call; Behavioral: Leaflet written in the patient's/family mother tongue

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03230409

PIC-68-13

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study evaluates the efficacy of nursing interventions on adherence to antituberculosis medication in a paediatric cohort (aged 0-18 years) and identifies the risk factors for non-compliance.

There are two phases in the study; Phase 1: retrospective descriptive analysis in children and young people receiving antituberculosis treatment (non-intervention group); and Phase 2: quasi-experimental, longitudinal, prospective study (intervention group). The results of the two phases will be compared.

Full description

The study was carried out in the outpatient tuberculosis (TB) Unit of a tertiary-care pediatric center in Catalonia (Northeast Spain), which is a referral center for pediatric TB (Hospital Sant Joan de Déu) in the Southern Barcelona Health Care Region (Regió Sanitària Barcelona Sud) (1,346,000 inhabitants, 16.5% of whom are under 18 years of age).The TB incidence rate in Catalonia has decreased from 21.6 per 100,000 population in 2004 to 14.4 in 2015 (7.3 cases per 100,000 population of pediatric age)(Rodés, Espinilla, & García, 2016).

In both phases, all children and adolescents (aged <18 years) starting anti-tuberculosis (anti-TB) treatment due to close contact with a TB patient (primary chemoprophylaxis), Latent Tuberculosis Infection (LTBI) or TB disease were eligible to participate in the study. Directly Observed Treatment (DOT) is not routinely available in Spain, and its use is restricted to individual cases, as per physician decision.

The number of children and adolescents required to participate in the study was calculated using a unilateral chi-square proportion comparison test for independent samples, with a level of significance of 5% and a power of 80%, a 2/1 ratio in Phase 1/Phase 2 group sizes and assuming a significant increase of 15% in the adherence rate after the nurse-led interventions (60% in Phase 1 and 75% in Phase 2). Thus, it was calculated that 182 and 91 children and adolescents would be needed in the Phase 1 and Phase 2 groups, respectively.

Procedure and interventions:

As per national guidelines, primary chemoprophylaxis after TB contact consists of isoniazid in monotherapy until TB infection screening is repeated 10-12 weeks later. Treatment of LTBI includes either 3 months of isoniazid and rifampicin or 6-9 months of isoniazid in monotherapy, and treatment of TB disease consists of a 2-month induction phase with 4 drugs (isoniazid, rifampicin, pyrazinamide and ethambutol), followed by isoniazid and rifampicin for a minimum of 4 months.

Routine outpatient follow-up visits were scheduled as follows: (a) in patients receiving primary chemoprophylaxis or LTBI treatment: baseline visit, and 2 weeks and 3 months later (end of treatment in most cases); (b) in patients treated for TB disease: baseline visit, 2 weeks later and on a monthly basis thereafter.

Four nurse-led interventions were implemented after Phase 1: 2 educational interventions (leaflet in mother tongue and a follow-up open telephone call) and 2 monitoring interventions (the Eidus-Hamilton test and a written questionnaire about adherence to anti-TB treatment), which were exclusively carried out by 2 study nurses.

Whenever the Eidus-Hamilton test or the written questionnaire were consistent with sub-optimal adherence, immediate feedback was given to the parents and the patient the study nurse underlined the importance of adherence, assessed any potential hindrances and answered any questions. A follow-up visit or telephone call was scheduled 7-10 days later.

The level of adherence to anti-TB treatment was be identified retrospectively in Phase 1 of the study, as the risk factors associated with adherence in our cohort. Once Phase 2 was completed, the results were be compared with those of Phase 1 and the success of the new nurse-led interventions assessed.

Final results will be used to design the definitive Nurse-led Follow-up Programme that will be implemented in the TB Unit.

Enrollment: 359 patients

Sex: All

Ages: Under 18 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• In both phases, all children and adolescents (aged <18 years) starting anti-TB treatment due to close contact with a TB patient (primary chemoprophylaxis), Latent Tuberculosis Infectious (LTBI) or Tuberculosis (TB) disease were eligible to participate in the study.

Exclusion criteria

• Referral from another center after anti-TB treatment had already begun
• Patients with other chronic diseases requiring hospital follow-up and/or other chronic therapies
• Known poor previous adherence to anti-TB treatment (if treatment was repeated or restarted)
• A significant language barrier that prevented the child or his/her relatives from properly understanding the nature of the study.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Non-Randomized

Interventional model: Factorial Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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359 participants in 2 patient groups

Phase 1, Retrospective

No Intervention group

Description:

Routine outpatient follow-up visits were scheduled as follows: (a) in patients receiving primary chemoprophylaxis or Latent Tuberculosis Infection (LTBI) treatment: baseline visit, and 2 weeks and 3 months later (end of treatment in most cases); (b) in patients treated for Tuberculosis disease: baseline visit, 2 weeks later and on a monthly basis thereafter.

Phase 2, Prospective

Experimental group

Description:

Four nurse-led interventions were implemented after Phase 1: * Intervention 1: at baseline visit, the parents or carers of the children, were given a leaflet in the mother tongue. This leaflet was available in 10 different languages: Spanish and Catalan (the two official languages of the country), English, French, German, Russian, Romanian, Chinese, Urdu and Arabic. * Intervention 2: a follow-up open telephone call was made 7-10 days after the baseline visit and whenever the patient failed to attend the scheduled visits. * Intervention 3: the Eidus-Hamilton test was performed twice, 2 weeks after the baseline visit and at the end of treatment. To prevent patients from only taking their medication occasionally, directly before their visits, they were not informed of the purpose of the urine test. * Intervention 4: a written questionnaire about adherence to anti-TB treatment on all the follow-up visits.

Treatment:

Biological: Eidus-Hamilton Test

Behavioral: A written questionnaire

Behavioral: A follow-up telephone call

Behavioral: Leaflet written in the patient's/family mother tongue