A study of proportion of disability and its determinants among leprosy patients.

BACKGROUND: Widespread implementation of MDT has clearly been extremely successful in curing and reducing the prevalence of leprosy throughout the world including India. However, social stigma remains a major obstacle to self-reporting and early treatment. OBJECTIVES: 1) To study the proportion of disabilities as per the WHO definition in newly detected leprosy patients. 2) To know the determinants of disabilities in newly detected leprosy patients. METHODOLOGY: A cross sectional study was conducted in urban leprosy center Hubli. Data was collected by 500 leprosy patients who had registered between December 2008 to 2013. Demographic profile of the patients, presence and type of disability and determinants of disability were collected from the register maintained in urban leprosy center Hubli. RESULTS: 100 deformity cases (20%) were found among 500 cases. The majority of deformity cases were in the age group of 20-30 years (24%), 78% were male patients. 74% had grade-2 deformity, with claw hand in 37%, foot drop in 9%, trophic ulcer in 27%, 1% ocular deformity and 26% grade 1 deformity seen (loss of sensation). Out of 100 deformity cases, borderline leprosy cases were 80(80%), tuberculoid type 1(1%), lepromatous type were 3(3%), 13(13%) were pure neuritic type, 2(2%) were indeterminate type, 1(1%) histoid type. New cases (not on the treatment) with deformity were 70%, old cases (on treatment) with deformity were 30%. Conclusion: Proportion of Disabilities among leprosy patients were 20%. Disabilities were more common among males, borderline leprosy cases and new cases.