To synthetically evaluate the risk factors of multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in China.

Chinese databases (CNKI, Wanfang, SinoMed and VIP) and English database (PubMed) were used to collect studies on risk factors for MDR-TB from 1990 to 2013. Meanwhile, relevant studies were manually retrieved. According to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, studies were screened, data were extracted and quality assessed. A Meta-analysis was performed by using Stata 11.0 software.

Twenty five studies on the risk factors of MDR-TB were synthetically and quantitatively analyzed. The results of Meta-analysis showed that factors as: being Han ethnic group, history of tuberculosis treatment, pulmonary cavity, floating population, TB case contact history, regular medication, living in rural areas, and poor economy were associated with the incidence of MDR-TB, the pooled OR values were 3.12 (95%CI: 1.16-8.40) , 5.27 (95% CI:3.60-7.72) , 1.39 (95%CI:1.03-1.87) , 1.69 (95%CI: 1.07-2.68) , 4.34 (95%CI: 1.91-9.86) , 0.23 (95% CI: 0.16-0.35) , 1.86 (95% CI: 1.59-2.18) and 1.62 (95% CI: 1.34-1.96) , respectively.

Factors as: being Han ethnic group, history of tuberculosis treatment, pulmonary cavity, floating population, TB case contact history, living in rural areas and poor economy were considered to be at risk of MDR-TB while regular medication might be a protective factor to MDR-TB.

Multidrug resistant tuberculosis; Risk factor; Meta-analysis