Asian Journal of Microbiology, Biotechnology & Environmental Sciences Paper

COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT THROUGH AGENT OF CHANGE INTO THE EARLY DETERMINATION OF HUMAN TUBERCULOSIS SUSPECTS: A CASE STUDY IN NORTH ACEH REGENCY, INDONESIA

IBRAHIM, HARRY AGUSNAR, WIRSAL HASAN4 AND HERU SENTOSA

Abstract

Pulmonary Tuberculosis (TB) was a disease that infected infection one-third of the world population and is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Indonesia has the second highest number of the cases of TB in the world. The discovery of patients with Acid-Fast Bacilli (AFB) (+) was only 60%, and 3% of TB patients were having positive HIV. Specifically, the North Aceh Regency had 485 AFB (+) with the case detection rate was still very low (44.71%). The study aimed to analyze the strategy of community empowerment through Islamic religious leaders in improving the early discovery of suspected pulmonary tuberculosis. The study used the analytical epidemiology study design with the case-control research design. The locations of endemic areas of TB were Nisam (intervened by Islamic religious leaders) and Kuta Makmur (Intervened by health expert workers) which ran from January to June 2016. The population was all the communities living in the study sites. The sample size was calculated by Lemma show formula which amounts of 80 people with a ratio of 1:1 so the total sample size was 160 people. All the data were analyzed by logistic regression using statistical software. The results showed that there was an increase in the number of respondents who conducted an early check of suspected pulmonary tuberculosis. There were 58 people reported in which the previous reports showed only 13 people who conducted the checkup. From all the people, there were 5 people detected pulmonary tuberculosis. After the intervention by the agent of change of the Islamic religious figure, the related significant variable was: knowledge (OR = 3.58, p = 0.026), perception (OR = 14.06; p = 0.000), and family income (OR = 7.49, p = 0.000) with early discovery of suspected pulmonary TB. The most dominant factor is the perception of respondents. It was concluded that the interventions by the Islamic religious leaders were better for improving the respondent knowledge and changing the attitudes and perceptions. Furthermore, the improvement increases the early detection of pulmonary tuberculosis suspects.