Abstract:
This is a prospective, analytical intervention study carried out at the Colombo Chest Clinic
with, New, sputum positive, pulmonary tuberculosis patients. The study was conducted over
a period of one year commencing from May 2003. The standard Institutional-based Directly
Observed Treatment (Dot) strategy was compared with a directly observed home-based
strategy with a familymember serving as the DOT supervisor using a randomly selected
sample of 17 patients in each group. This study demontrated that a home-based Directly
Observed Treatment Strategy supervised by a family member proved to be better in
improving compliance than the current health worker administered DOTS. The majority of
treatment supervisors were either spouses of the patients
