Definitions

People-centred (or person-centred) care is defined as “providing care that is respectful of, and responsive to, individual patient preferences, needs and values, and ensuring that patient values guide all clinical decisions”.

Social support in this document is defined as support to TB patients that includes informational and educational support (health education and counselling), psychological or emotional support, material support and companion support.

Treatment adherence interventions include social support such as: patient education or information support and counselling; material support (e.g. food, financial enablers, transport fees); psychological support; tracers such as home visits or digital health communications (e.g. short message service [SMS], telephone calls); medication monitors; and staff education. The interventions should be selected on the basis of the assessment of the individual patient’s needs, values and beliefs, and the provider’s resources and conditions for implementation.

Treatment administration options include: various suitable forms of treatment support, such as regular community- or home-based treatment support and video-supported treatment; and less preferable forms of treatment administration such as health facility-based treatment support and self-administered or unsupervised treatment.

Treatment support terminology in this document is used to describe an approach to supporting patients who are taking prescribed doses of TB medicines in order to help ensure adherence to treatment and maximize its efficacy. Treatment support needs to be provided in the context of people-centred care and should be based on the individual patient’s needs, acceptability and preferences. It includes aspects of support for, and motivation and understanding of, patients without coercion. Historically, this group of interventions were labelled as “directly-observed treatment”.

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