Objective:

to describe the level of knowledge physicians and nursing professionals have regarding risk factors, diagnosis and isolation measures for tuberculosis.

Materials and methods:

cross-sectional study carried out in eight health service providers (HSP) during 2017 through application of a questionnaire that was filled out by each participant.

Results:

a total of 72 people were surveyed (48 doctors and 24 nursing professionals) of whom 51.4% of were women and 44.4% were under 35 years of age. Among them, 59.7% worked in public HSPs while 40.3% worked in private HSPs (including 9.7% who worked in indigenous HSPs). Overall, 64.4% of the respondents were correct in the questions related to behavior or initial care measures for the patient and 60.8% were correct in their diagnosis impression. There were 66.7% correct answers on risk factors, 69.4% correct answers regarding the clinical profile of the disease, 67.0% correct answers on questions related to diagnosis and 47.5% correct answers related to isolation measures. According to the professions, physicians had a higher percentage of correct answers in questions about risk factors, clinical symptoms, and diagnosis, while nurses had better scores in questions about isolation measures.

Conclusions:

the general level of correct answers was 62.6%. The lowest levels of correct answers were found in questions related to isolation measures. These deficiencies in knowledge can influence the opportunity in the diagnosis and control of the disease and, as a consequence, continuous training programs on tuberculosis for these professionals should be strengthened.

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