Background: Healthcare workers (HCWs) have a high occupational risk for tuberculosis (TB) infection. Common methods of screening for TB infection are the tuberculin skin test (TST) and interferon-gamma release assays (IGRAs).

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the agreement of TST and IGRA (QuantiFERON®-TB Gold-In-Tube; QFT-GIT) as
applied to HCWs at a large university hospital in northeast of Thailand.

Materials and Methods: The study population included the preplacement medical records of new employees who were tested with both TST and QFT-GIT, comprising 212 HCWs. Eligible for data analysis were 197 participants (calculated sample size was 196). SPSS version19.0 was used to analyze Cohen’s kappa coefficient.

Results: The samples included 197 HCWs: 63 males (32.0%), 134 females (68.0%), 133 physicians (67.5%) and 64 nurses (32.5%).
The mean age was 25.6 years (SD = 3.12). Thirty-eight workers (19.3%) tested positive in the TST and 19 workers (9.6%) were
QFT-GIT-positive. The total agreement of TST and QFT-GIT was 88.3 (K = 0.54). Forty workers (20.3%) were positive in at least one test.

Conclusion: This study showed moderate agreement of TST and QFT-GIT, which was consistent with the previous studies in high
tuberculosis-burden countries (TBC). The authors suggest that pre-placement HCWs in Thailand should be screened for TB infection
using the QFT-GIT method.

Keywords: Tuberculin skin test, QuantiFERON, IGRA, Healthcare workers, Tuberculosis