Tuberculosis Prophylaxis in the Homeless--A Controlled Trial

To conduct a three-arm, randomized controlled trial of methods to improve adherence to biweekly directly observed prophylaxis (DOPT) for tuberculosis in homeless adults in San Francisco.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Detailed Description

BACKGROUND:

Tuberculosis was on the decline from the mid 1950s until the mid 1980s; however, the United States is now experiencing a resurgence of tuberculosis. In 1992, approximately 27,000 new cases were reported, an increase of about 20 percent from 1985 to 1992. Not only are tuberculosis cases on the increase, but a serious aspect of the problem is the recent occurence of outbreaks of multidrug resistant (MDR) tuberculosis, which poses an urgent public health problem and requires rapid intervention.

Control programs involve two major components. First, and of highest priority, is to detect persons with active tuberculosis and treat them with effective antituberculosis drugs, which prevents death from tuberculosis and stops the transmission of infection to other persons. Treatment of active tuberculosis involves taking multiple antituberculosis drugs daily or several times weekly for at least six months. Failure to take the medications for the full treatment period may mean that the disease is not cured and may recur. If sufficient medications are not prescribed early and taken regularly, the tuberculosis organism can become resistant to the drugs, and the drug resistant tuberculosis then may be transmitted to other persons. Drug resistant disease is difficult and expensive to treat, and in some cases, cannot be treated with available medications.

The second major goal of control efforts is the detection and treatment of persons who do not have active tuberculosis, but who have latent tuberculosis infection. These people may be at high risk of developing active tuberculosis. The only approved treatment modality for preventive therapy requires treatment daily or twice weekly for a minimum of six months, and many patients do not complete the full course of therapy. Public and patient programs are needed to increase the awareness of the problems associated with tuberculosis control.

The study is part of the NHLBI initiative "Behavioral Interventions for Control of Tuberculosis" . The concept for the initiative originated from the National Institutes of Health Working Group on Health and Behavior. The Request for Applications was released in October, 1994.

DESIGN NARRATIVE:

Three approaches were compared for improving adherence to biweekly directly observed prophylaxis for tuberculosis in the homeless: $5 biweekly money incentive (MI) for adherence to DOPT, $5 value biweekly non-money incentive (NMI) for adherence to DOPT, and $5 biweekly money incentive supplemented by a peer community outreach worker (MI + PCOW). The outreach worker assisted subjects with completion of adherence to DOPT. Predictors of adherence to DOPT were examined, including sociodemographic, psychological and behavioral, and environmental factors.

The study completion date listed in this record was obtained from the "End Date" entered in the Protocol Registration and Results System (PRS) record.

Study Type

Observational

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

No older than 100 years (Child, Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

Male

Description

No eligibility criteria

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Investigators

  • Andrew Moss, University of California

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

September 1, 1995

Study Completion (Actual)

August 1, 1999

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

May 25, 2000

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 25, 2000

First Posted (Estimate)

May 26, 2000

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

March 16, 2016

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

March 15, 2016

Last Verified

April 1, 2004

More Information

Terms related to this study

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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