Theme 2: Adherence in tuberculosis medication
Adherence, in the context of this review, implies completing the course of treatment prescribed by the tuberculosis multi-disciplinary team. Adherence is also referred to in the literature as compliance or concordance.
There can be a number of reasons for a patient not adhering to a course of treatment and these options will be explored within this section. Knowledge has already been discussed in this review and a lack of knowledge by the patient is generally recognized as being one of the reasons for non-adherence. The patient May have lack of knowledge about the risks of tuberculosis and therefore part of the nurse's role would be to educate the patient and their family. It is highly likely that tuberculosis specialist nurses would undertake this role and the district nurses would only intervene when non-adherence has become an issue. In these cases direct observation therapy(DOT).DOT entails the nurse supervising the patient taking their medication and is discussed in more detail in Theme 3