A Systematic and Meta-Analysis Study on the Prevalence of Tuberculosis and Relative Risk Factors for Prisoners in Iran.

INTRODUCTION

Tuberculosis (TB) is a serious infectious disease that affects human health globally. The incidence of TB in prisons is usually much higher than the general population in different countries. The aim of this study was to evaluate the incidence of TB among prisoners in Iran, estimating the relative risk factors by performing a systematic and meta-analysis study on the related articles.

METHODOLOGY: Our systematic and meta-analysis study was performed according to the PRISMA guidelines. Two authors systematically searched Scopus, Iran doc, Cochrane, Pubmed, Medline, Embase, Iran medex, Magiran, SID, Google Scholar, and EBSCO. The quality assessment of articles was performed by using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. After article quality assessment, a fixed or random model, as appropriate, was used to pool the results in a meta-analysis. Heterogeneity between the studies was assessed using I-square and Q-test. Forest plots demonstrating the point and pooled estimates were drawn.

RESULTS

Overall, data from 19562 prisoners indicated 63 cases of TB. The prevalence of TB in prisoners was reported to range from 0.025% to 52% in eight studies. The highest prevalence of tuberculosis was related to the study of Rasht, 517 in 100,000, and the lowest rate was related to the study of Sought Khorasan, 25 in 100,000. The ES of the random effect model is 0.003 (95% CI, 0.001-0.005) and p-value <0.0001. The Higgins' I2 of all studies is 86.55%, and the p-value of the Cochrane Q statistics is <0.001, indicating that there is heterogeneity. Based on the Egger regression plot (t=2.18, p = 0.08, CI 95%: -0.001, 0.005), no publication bias existed.

CONCLUSION

According to the analysis findings, the frequency of tuberculosis among the prison in Iran was low. The highest prevalence obtained in our systematic study was 517 in 100,000 in Rasht, which was near the world statistics in the systematic review of world studies. Due to significant limitations in this study, it is not possible to indicate the exact prevalence of TB in prisons in Iran and compare this with the general population. However, more studies are needed to assess the related risk factors for designing health intervention plans to decrease the incidence rate of TB among prisoners.