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Volume 24, Number 10—October 2018
Research

Tuberculosis Treatment Monitoring by Video Directly Observed Therapy in 5 Health Districts, California, USA

Richard S. GarfeinComments to Author , Lin Liu, Jazmine Cuevas-Mota, Kelly Collins, Fatima Muñoz, Donald G. Catanzaro, Kathleen Moser, Julie Higashi, Teeb Al-Samarrai, Paula Kriner, Julie Vaishampayan, Javier Cepeda, Michelle A. Bulterys, Natasha K. Martin, Phillip Rios, and Fredric Raab
Author affiliations: University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA (R.S. Garfein, L. Liu, J. Cuevas-Mota, K. Collins, F. Muñoz, J. Cepeda, M.A. Bulterys, N.K. Martin, P. Rios, F. Raab); University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA (D.G. Catanzaro); San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency, San Diego, California, USA (K. Moser); San Francisco Department of Public Health, San Francisco, California, USA (J. Higashi); Santa Clara County Public Health Department, San Jose, California, USA (T. Al-Samarrai); Imperial County Public Health Department, El Centro, California, USA (P. Kriner); San Joaquin Public Health Services, Stockton, California, USA (J. Vaishampayan)

Main Article

Table 2

Reported experiences of patients participating in a study assessing VDOT for monitoring tuberculosis treatment, by site, 5 California health districts, 2015–2016*

Characteristic
 Total
 Site
 p value†
San Diego
 San Francisco
 Santa Clara
 Imperial
 San Joaquin
No. patients
 274‡
 100
 99
 49
 11
 15
VDOT use
Months on VDOT, median (IQR) 5.4 (3.5–7.1) 5.2 (3.2–6.3) 5.4 (3.5–7.3) 5.5 (4.1–8.1) 4.0 (2.1–5.6) 6.1 (4.4–7.7) 0.08
FEDO, median (SD), IQR
 93.0 (13.5), 83–97
 88.7 (15.1), 77–94
 95.5 (11.8), 87–98
 95.2 (10.3), 89–98
 84.5 (20.0), 78–94
 96.1 (7.9), 93–98
 <0.001
No. patients in follow-up interviews
 214
 74
 84
 39
 9
 7
Tuberculosis and treatment perceptions
Did you share your VDOT experience with family members?
Yes 156 (73) 55 (74) 55 (66) 30 (77) 9 (100) 6 (86) 0.18
No 58 (27) 19 (26) 29 (34) 9 (23) 0 1 (14)
Did you share your VDOT experience with friends, neighbors, classmates, or coworkers?
Yes 73 (34) 24 (32) 28 (33) 13 (33) 3 (33) 5 (71) 0.38
No 141 (66) 50 (68) 57 (67) 26 (67) 6 (67) 2 (29)
Were you concerned someone would see you using the VDOT cell phone?
Yes 73 (34) 19 (26) 34 (40) 15 (38) 4 (44) 1 (14) 0.23
No 141 (66) 55 (74) 51 (60) 24 (62) 5 (56) 6 (86)
Did you ever fail to record a video because you were worried someone was watching you?
Yes 18 (8) 7 (9) 9 (11) 2 (5) 0 0 0.87
No 196 (92) 67 (91) 76 (89) 37 (95) 9 (100) 7 (100)
Confidentiality of VDOT vs. DOT?
More 146 (70) 49 (67) 55 (66) 30 (77) 7 (78) 5 (83) 0.68
Less 5 (2) 2 (3) 1 (1) 2 (5) 0 0
Same
 59 (28)
 22 (30)
 27 (33)
 7 (18)
 2 (22)
 1 (17)
VDOT experience
Overall, how easy/difficult did you find the VDOT process?
Very easy 174 (81) 58 (78) 68 (79) 36 (92) 6 (67) 6 (86) 0.19
Somewhat easy 32 (15) 14 (19) 13 (15) 3 (8) 1 (11) 1 (14)
Somewhat or very difficult 9 (4) 2 (3) 5 (6) 0 2 (22) 0
If you had to redo tuberculosis treatment, would you choose VDOT or DOT?
VDOT 192 (90) 67 (92) 75 (87) 35 (90) 9 (100) 6 (86)
DOT 6 (3) 1 (1) 4 (5) 1 (3) 0 0 0.9
No preference 16 (7) 5 (7) 7 (8) 3 (8) 0 1 (14)
Would you recommend VDOT to other tuberculosis patients?
Yes 202 (96) 70 (95) 81 (96) 35 (97) 9 (100) 7 (100) 0.95
No 8 (4) 4 (5) 3 (4) 1 (3) 0 0
How often did you take tuberculosis medication away from home?
Never or rarely 120 (56) 39 (53) 54 (64) 19 (49) 5 (56) 3 (43) 0.36
Less than half or half the time 48 (22) 18 (24) 12 (14) 13 (33) 2 (22) 3 (43)
Most of the time or every time 46 (21) 17 (23) 19 (22) 7 (18) 2 (22) 1 (14)
How often did you have problems using the VDOT application?
Never 82 (38) 24 (32) 41 (48) 16 (41) 1 (11) 0 0.06
Rarely 99 (46) 35 (47) 33 (39) 20 (51) 5 (56) 6 (86)
Less than half the time 23 (11) 9 (12) 9 (11) 2 (5) 2 (22) 1 (14)
Half the time or more 10 (5) 6 (8) 2 (2) 1 (3) 1 (11) 0
How often did poor reception cause you problems uploading videos?
Never 65 (31) 13 (18) 34 (40) 12 (31) 3 (33) 3 (43)
Rarely 103 (49) 41 (56) 35 (42) 20 (51) 3 (33) 4 (57) 0.15
Less than half the time 24 (11) 11 (15) 7 (8) 3 (8) 3 (33) 0
Half the time or more 20 (9) 8 (11) 8 (10) 4 (10) 0 0

*Values are no. (%) participants unless otherwise indicated. DOT, directly observed therapy; FEDO, fraction of expected doses observed = number of complete doses observed via VDOT divided by the number of doses expected; IQR, interquartile range; VDOT, video directly observed therapy.
†p values based on Fisher exact test or Kruskal-Wallis test. Variable totals might not sum to column totals because of missing data.
‡Includes 2 participants who used VDOT but had missing baseline interview data.

Main Article

Page created: September 16, 2018
Page updated: September 16, 2018
Page reviewed: September 16, 2018
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