CHENNAI: Wings of Support, an intervention strategy ensures patient-centric care for individuals battling Tuberculosis in tackling the impacts of mental health issues in patients and caregivers caused due to several stigmas surrounding the disease.

The supportive treatment aims to improve the resilience of persons with TB and their caregivers in a selected tertiary TB care facility in Tamil Nadu in overcoming psycho-social challenges.

An article published in the Tamil Nadu Journal of Public Health and Medical Research stated that such interventions improve patients mental health and tackle the burden of treatment and infection-related concerns.

The experts from the Department of Social and Behavioural Research, ICMR  National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis, Chennai, and Government Hospital of Thoracic Medicine, Tambaram, used co-creation methods to develop a psycho-social intervention module for TB patients admitted to the Government Hospital of Thoracic Medicine, Tambaram, and their family caregivers.

Healthcare providers and social workers conducted over 44 participatory game-based Wings of Support sessions on different themes related to TB disease, medication and treatments from March 2023 to January 2024 for 450 persons. The sessions focused on TB stigma, medication adherence, nutritional issues, unhealthy behaviours like alcoholism, stress, anxiety, and other related issues.

The sessions employed specific concepts and techniques involving motivation, goal setting, psychoeducation, problem-solving, mindfulness, normalisation, behavioural activation, and cognitive coping. The intervention was found more receptive, and was perceived as highly relevant and useful by the participants, stated the article.

As the intervention addresses a range of psycho-social needs of the person with TB and their caregivers in an efficient and program-friendly manner, it is also being proposed for evaluation in the National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme (NTEP) using an experimental study design to test its efficacy. An official from the NTEP said that the programme can be adopted in other TB care facilities as well if it is found effective because it addresses the psycho-social concerns among patients and caregivers.