Abstract: Objective  To understand the situation of delay in seeking health care among patients with pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) in Liangping county of Chongqing, and to explore the relative factors of patients’ delay. Methods  The individual information of all pulmonary TB patients (3365 patients in total) notified in Liangping county of Chongqing from 2005 to 2012 were exported from the National TB Recording and Reporting (R&R) System. The rate of patients’ delay in seeking health care was analyzed and described. Rank-sum test was used to analyze the differences of patients’ delay by sex, age and occupation of patient, as well as source of patient and type of TB; P<0.05 was considered to have statistical significance. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify if the patients’ delay was related to sex, age, occupation, source of patient and type of TB; the level of statistical significance was P<0.05. Results  The overall rate of pulmonary TB patients’ delay in seeking health care was 73.14% (2461/3365) in Liangping county of Chongqing, and the median of patients’ delay was 32 days; the time of delayed health care seeking was more than one month in 52.84% (1778/3365) of pulmonary TB patients. The delay was related to occupation, source of patient and type of TB: the TB patients with occupation as farmer had the highest delayed health care seeking compared with those in other occupations (OR＝1.513, 95%CI＝1.279-1.778, P＜0.05); compared with the patients who were referred by health facilities at county level, the patients who were referred by township hospital or village doctors as TB suspects were more likely to delay in seeking health care (OR=2.170, 95%CI＝1.798-2.618, P＜0.05); and the relapsed TB patients were more likely to have delayed health care seeking compared with new patients (OR＝1.222, 95%CI＝1.222-0.950, P＜0.05). Conclusion  The rate of delayed health care seeking among patients with pulmonary TB was high in Liangping county of Chongqing, which was associated with patient’s occupation, source of patient and type of TB. Effective measures should be taken to reduce the TB patients’ delay.

Key words: Tuberculosis, pulmonary/prevention &, control, Appointments and schedules, Attitude to health, Time perception, Chongqing city