DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS AND TREATMENT ABANDONMENT AMONG ADULTS WITH TUBERCULOSIS ATTENDED AT A PERUVIAN HEALTH CENTER, 2017-2023

Gutierrez-Villanueva J.L.; Moquillaza-Alcántara V.H. · Revista de la Facultad de Medicina Humana (2025) · DOI: 10.25176/rfmh.v25i3.7014

Resumen

Introduction: In Peru, tuberculosis (TB) is highly prevalent and lethal, and one-third of patients discontinue treatment. Objective: To evaluate the association between depressive symptoms and abandonment of antituberculosis treatment in adults treated in Áncash between 2017 and 2023. Methods: An analytical cross-sectional study was conducted at the Centro de Salud Santa (primary care level). A total of 155 patients with confirmed TB diagnosis (January 2017-December 2023) were included. Depressive symptoms were screened using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9). The outcome was treatment abandonment, defined as absence from treatment for more than 30 days. Covariates included age, sex, marital status, and education. Adjusted prevalence ratios (aPR) by marital status and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were reported. Results: The median age was 43 years, and 57.42% were male. Treatment abandonment occurred in 14.84% of patients. Compared to no depression, moderate depression was associated with higher prevalence of abandonment (aPR = 10.80; 95% CI: 3.32-35.2; p = 0.001), as was moderately severe depression (aPR = 21.9; 95% CI: 6.61-72.8; p < 0.001). Mild depression showed no statistically significant association (aPR = 0.75; 95% CI: 0.16-3.57; p = 0.726). PHQ-9 scores were consistently higher among those who abandoned treatment; this difference was more pronounced in multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) than in drug-sensitive TB. No cases of severe depression were recorded. Conclusion: There is an independent positive association between depressive symptoms and anti-tuberculosis treatment abandonment, and prevalence increases with the severity of depression. © It is an open access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original work is duly cited.

Instituciones: Universidad César Vallejo