Influenza testing trends in sentinel surveillance general practices in Victoria 2007 to 2014.

Influenza testing trends in sentinel surveillance general practices in Victoria 2007 to 2014. Commun Dis Intell Q Rep. 2017 Mar 31;41(1):E4-E9 Authors: Cowie GA, Cowie BC, Fielding JE Abstract The Victorian Sentinel Practice Influenza Network conducts syndromic surveillance for influenza-like illness (ILI), with testing for laboratory confirmation of a proportion of cases at the discretion of general practitioners. The aim of this study was to evaluate the consistency of sentinel general practitioners' swabbing practice within and between influenza seasons. Aggregated, weekly, non-identified data for May to October each year from 2007 to 2014 were used to calculate the proportion of patients presenting with ILI (defined as cough, fever and fatigue), proportion of ILI patients swabbed and proportion of swabs positive for influenza. Data on the proportion of consultations for ILI and the proportion of ILI patients swabbed were aggregated into time-period quintiles for each year. Analysis of variance was used to compare ILI patients swabbed for each aggregated time-period quintile over all 8 years. Spearman's correlation and Bland-Altman analyses were used to measure association and agreement respectively between ILI proportions of consultations and swabs positive for influenza in time period quintiles within each year. Data were aggregated by year for the rest of the analyses. Between 2007 and 2014 there was a slight decrease in the pr...
Source: Communicable Diseases Intelligence Quarterly Report - Category: Infectious Diseases Tags: Commun Dis Intell Q Rep Source Type: research