Abstract:

Objective To understand the incidence of catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) and its influencing factors in patients with rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis (TB).Methods Ninety-two patients (confirmed by sputum culture of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, rifampicin and isoniazid susceptbility test of clinical isolates) who were registered from 2016 to 2017 in the drug-resistant TB designated hospital in Ningbo and treated for at least 12 months were selected to participant in a questionnaire survey on the economic burden of TB, 85 participants completed the survey with an effective rate of 92.4%. According to recommendation given by World Health Organization, CHE was defined as health expenditure exceeding 40% of the family’s capacity to pay, incidence of household CHE were then calculated. Chi-square test was conducted to screen out suspicious factors with α=0.10, then multivariate logistic regression was conducted to identify influencing factors of CHE with the suspicious factors as independent variables and α=0.05.Results 71.8% (61/85) of those families surveyed had CHE due to TB. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that families with high annual per capita income (“RMB 25000 yuan-”:OR=0.179, 95%CI=0.035-0.906, P=0.038; “≥RMB 40000 yuan”:OR=0.118, 95%CI=0.023-0.605, P=0.010) had a lower risk of CHE comparing with those with low annual per capita income (“OR=5.623, 95%CI=1.739-18.178, P=0.004) had a higher risk of CHE.Conclusion The incidence of CHE in patients with rifampicin-resistant TB is high. Hospitalization for TB is a risk factor of CHE, high annual per capita income of the family is a protective factor.

Key words: Rifampin, Tuberculosis, multidrug-resistant, Tuberculosis, pulmonary, Medical indigency, Factor analysis, statistical