Barriers and Delays in Tuberculosis Diagnosis and Treatment Services: Does Gender Matter?

Table 2

Summary of quantitative gender-related findings by outcome type.

Outcome type	Number of studies	Gender difference				No gender difference
		Women > Men		Men > Women
		𝑛 (%)	List of studies	𝑛 (%)	List of studies	𝑛 (%)	List of studies
Individual-level barriers
Financial	21^a	11 (52%)	[12–14], [15]^a, [16–22]	5 (24%)	[23, 24], [15]^a, [25, 26]	6 (29%)	[27–32]
Physical	9	1 (11%)	[14]			8 (89%)	[26, 30–36]
Stigma^b	25	11 (44%)	[17, 18, 22, 37–44]	2 (8%)	[45, 46]	12 (48%)	[24–26, 35, 47–54]
Health literacy	49	17 (35%)	[26, 34–36, 38, 41, 44, 50, 55–63]	8 (16%)	[24, 28, 40, 42, 43, 64–66]	24 (50%)	[14, 20, 22, 25, 30, 37, 45–47, 51–53, 67–78]
Sociodemographic	6	4 (67%)	[17, 79–81]			2 (33%)	[36, 71]
Provider-/system- level barriers	19	8 (42%)	[17, 29, 37, 82–86]			11 (58%)	[15, 28, 34, 35, 52, 73, 75, 87–90]
Combined individual-, provider-, and system-level barriers	7	5 (72%)	[29, 91–94]	1 (14%)	[95]	1 (14%)	[18]
Individual-level delay	58	13 (22%)	[14, 17, 21, 51, 73, 79, 96–102]	7 (12%)	[37, 61, 103–107]	38 (66%)	[16, 18–20, 28, 30–32, 36, 56, 71, 81, 108–133]
Provider-/system-level delay	37	11 (30%)	[14, 19, 20, 36, 81, 85, 120, 128, 131, 134, 135]	2 (5%)	[35, 101]	24 (65%)	[16, 18, 32, 33, 79, 96, 99, 100, 104, 106, 107, 113, 115, 117, 118, 121, 122, 124, 132, 133, 136–139]
Combined individual-, provider-, and system-level delay	25^c	9 (36%)	[140], [141]^c, [27, 32, 36, 79, 100, 142, 143]	1 (4%)	[141]^c	17 (68%)	[33, 69, 110], [141]^c, [35, 86, 114, 117, 124, 129, 131–133, 144–147]

aThis study is included in both gender difference categories as it reported that the direct costs of seeking care were higher for men and that the household costs of seeking care were higher for women.
^bOne study was not included because the direction of association between gender and stigma could not be assessed [30].
^cThis study is included in all three gender-related finding columns as it is a multicountry study and reported gender-related findings that differed from country to country.