Mobile Health Intervention for Active Tuberculosis

The behavioral intervention is delivered through a mobile phone TB support app. The functions allow the participant to: self-report daily administration of their TB medication, self-report side effects if applicable, review educational material on TB disease and its treatment, complete a treatment adherence monitoring test (urine drug metabolite test), take notes, and review their treatment progress/report. The drug metabolite test will require that the participant place a small amount of urine on the end of the paper strip, wait for results, and take a picture of the paper using the app. The purpose of this test is to confirm that medication was correctly taken within the past 24 hours.

Usual care consists of outpatient treatment management from the time of diagnosis (unless symptoms are severe and hospitalization is recommended), routine clinical and laboratory tests, and follow-up appointments determined by the clinician. In general, patients receive 1-2 month's supply of medication and are asked to return monthly for follow-up.