Background: Prisons offer a fertile setting for the transmission of tuberculosis due to the presence of many classic risk factors for both infection and disease: overcrowding, poor ventilation, and little sunlight. Prisoners are often malnourished and have poor hygiene and are more likely to have a background of alcohol and drug abuse.
Objectives: To determine the prevalence of prisoners with respiratory symptoms and pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) through active case finding in a prisoner population of the county jail of Carapicuíba, and to study possible related variables.
Methods: This was a cross-sectional study, and respiratory symptomatic individuals (RSI) were detected through active case finding. Socio-demographic data were collected from inmates' judicial history using a specific questionnaire. The RSI provided sputum specimens for detection of acid fast bacilli and culture for mycobacterium identification.
Results: Among the 397 prisoners studied, 154 reported respiratory symptoms for more than three weeks, and were considered RSI; the variables associated with RSI were: having already been tried and incarcerated for more than six months and seven were diagnosed as PTB (1,763 cases/ 100,000 inhabitants).
Conclusions: The prevalence of RSI and PTB cases were respectively 39 and 35 times greater than the general population.