Development of a Pharmaceutical Care Programme for Tuberculosis Management in Primary Healthcare Centres in Yobe State

Tuberculosis management at primary healthcare level in Yobe State, North East Nigeria, is hampered by limited pharmaceutical care support, inadequate patient counselling, and high default rates. This study developed a pharmaceutical care programme tailored for tuberculosis management at primary healthcare centres in three LGAs of Yobe State. A three-stage programme development approach was used, combining situational analysis, programme design, and expert validation. Situational analysis involved review of tuberculosis treatment records at 12 PHCs and structured interviews with 30 tuberculosis patients and 25 DOTS supervisors. Qualitative thematic analysis identified major pharmaceutical care gaps including inadequate drug storage practices, inconsistent adherence counselling, poor adverse drug reaction monitoring, and minimal documentation. The pharmaceutical care programme developed addresses seven operational areas: patient enrolment counselling, adherence support strategies, nutritional counselling, drug interaction monitoring, adverse drug reaction identification and management, treatment outcome documentation, and community health worker collaboration protocols. A pharmacist competency training module and patient-facing educational materials translated into Hausa are included as programme components. Expert panel validation using a Delphi method with 14 participants achieved consensus on 91 percent of programme components. The study recommends immediate piloting of the programme across the three LGAs with pharmacist deployment, and calls for scaling to all active DOTS centres in Yobe State pending pilot evaluation.

Keywords: tuberculosis pharmaceutical care, primary healthcare, Yobe State, DOTS, North East Nigeria