CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY
Tuberculosis is a problem of global importance among communicable diseases. It is second leading disease causing death worldwide killing nearly 2 million people each year in Nigeria.  Non-compliance of patients on tuberculosis treatment in an irregular and unreliable way has greatly caused risk of treatment failure, relapse and the development of drug-resistance tuberculosis strains. There are varieties of reasons why patients fail to take their medications. The center for disease control (2008) states the following:
·        The patients compliant is that medicines  must be taken with empty stomach to facilitate absorption. This can be difficult for patients to follow especially waking  up an hour earlier than usual everyday just to take medicine  on empty stomach.

·        Another complains is the size of tablet

·        Side-effect of the drugs can lead to patients not complying to their treatment.

·        Issues on denial, stigmatization, emotional distress, cultural and life-style factors make patients not to take their treatment.

·        Poverty, transportation, religion and attitude of health workers contribute to non-compliance of patients on tuberculosis treatment.
Non-compliance of patient on tuberculosis treatment is a serious problem for national tuberculosis control programs (2007) states that this case tends   to have higher morbidity and mortality rate when compared to those who are not cured. They remain infectious for prolonged period of time, hence affected patient continues to transmit the disease in the community.
World Health Organization (2009) has estimated that 2 billion people have latent tuberculosis disease which has killed 1.7 million people in Nigeria. In Nigeria, 81% patients are non-compliant to treatment for more than one month before presenting at chest clinics. The patients visit traditional healers and have low level of knowledge about the disease or due to high cost of treatment, transportation and poverty. World health organization (2013)reported worldwide that some countries like South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Malaysia, Ghana, China, United States of America and Canada were implementing the directly- observed treatment short-course strategy by the end of 2013. World health organization 2015) currently recommends a case detection rate of 70% and a treatment success rate of 85% for all tuberculosis cases. It is believed that achieving these targets will lead to a reduction in tuberculosis prevalence, incidence, transmission and drug-resistance to tuberculosis treatment.
This study was conducted to determine the non-compliance of tuberculosis in Imo State University Teaching Hospital, Orlu L.G.A.
1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
Despite the global effort to reduce the incidence of tuberculosis worldwide through mass media, there is  still non-compliance to treatment which may be due to the bulkiness of the drugs and taking the  drugs on empty stomach. Noticing the incidence of tuberculosis on orthodox and other clinics motivates the researcher to carry out a research to determine the reasons for non-compliance of patients to tuberculosis treatment.
1.3 OBJECTIVE OF STUDY