The Presence of Cough and Tuberculosis: Active Case Finding Outcomes in the Philippines

Figure 1

Flow chart of ICM TB Screening Program. Prescreening: over the course of 16 weeks, participants of ICM’s Transform program go through poverty alleviation lessons. Participants were asked about TB physical symptoms at prescreening. Stage 1: those who were prescreened positive were asked again, the same questions, at this stage to filter out any false positive participants. Stage 2: ICM’s health trainers, local staff, who are fully capable of communicating in regional dialects, refer TB suspects to the closest rural health unit (RHU) for TB testing. This is where we monitored participants’ health-seeking behaviour through their decision to visit an RHU for testing or not. Stage 3: depending on the RHU, TB suspects are asked to provide a sputum sample and some would be required to have a chest X-ray taken for a more accurate diagnosis.