Impact of connecting tuberculosis directly observed therapy short-course with smoking cessation on health-related quality of life

This was a multi-centered non-randomized controlled study involving 120 TB patients who were current smokers at the time of TB diagnosis in Malaysia. Patients were assigned to either of two groups: the usual TB-DOTS plus SCI (SCIDOTS group) or the usual TB-DOTS only (DOTS group). The effect of the novel strategy on HRQoL was measured using EQ-5D questionnaire. Two-way repeated measure ANOVA was used to examine the effects.When compared, participants who received the integrated intervention had a better HRQoL than those who received the usual TB care. The SCIDOTS group had a significantly greater increase in EQ-5D utility score than the DOTS group during 6 months follow-up (mean ± SD = 0.98 ± 0.08 vs. 0.91 ± 0.14, p = 0.006). Similarly, the mean scores for EQ-VAS showed a consistently similar trend as the EQ-5D indices, with the scores increasing over the course of TB treatment. Furthermore, for the EQ-VAS, there were significant main effects for group [F (1, 84) = 4.91, p = 0.029, η2 = 0.06], time [F (2, 168) = 139.50, p = < 0.001, η2 = 0.62] and group x time interaction [F (2, 168) = 13.89, p = < 0.001, η2 = 0.14].This study supports the evidence that an integrated TB-tobacco treatment strategy could potentially improve overall quality of life outcomes among TB patients who are smokers.In recent years, there has been a global explosion of interest in the association between tuberculosis (TB) and tobacco smoking. Studies from different parts of the world have sufficiently documented consistent evidence that smoking substantially increases the risk of TB and death from it [1-4]. Tobacco smoking has in addition found to be significantly correlated with poor TB treatment outcomes and prognosis [5-8]. With such emerging evidence of association between the two diseases, recommendations for the inclusion of tobacco cessation interventions in TB care are becoming increasingly important and more widely disseminated [9-13]. Therefore, the integration of tobacco control with