Setting: Government hospitals in five districts in Malawi.
Objective: To determine care seeking behaviour and diagnostic processes in patients newly diagnosed with smear-positive pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB).
Design: Structured questionnaires completed by interview between January to September 1998.
Results: During the study period 1,518 patients were registered with PTB, of whom 1,099 (72%) were interviewed. The median delay between onset of cough and diagnosis was 8 weeks. There was a variable pattern of care seeking behaviour, with 70% of patients initially visiting a place of orthodox medical care and 30% visiting traditional healers, grocery shops, etc. Of these, 867 (79%) patients had one or more subsequent contacts for help, with these visits targeted more to orthodox medical care. At all stages, antibiotics resulted in symptomatic improvement in up to 40% of cases. There was a median time of 7 weeks between cough and first submission of sputum specimens. Almost all patients received sputum smear results after a median length of 4 days; 474 (43%) of patients were only aware of their diagnosis at the time of receiving smear results, this observation being significantly associated with lack of schooling and not knowing another person with TB.
Conclusion: More needs to be done to educate communities and non-orthodox care providers about the diagnosis and treatment of TB.