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Healthcare seeking behavior of patients with influenza like illness: comparison of the summer and winter influenza epidemics

BACKGROUND: Influenza often causes winter and summer epidemics in subtropical regions, but few studies have investigated the difference in healthcare seeking behavior of patients with influenza-like illness (ILI) between these two epidemics. METHODS: Household telephone surveys were conducted using...

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Autores principales: Meng, Huaiqing, Liao, Qiuyan, Suen, Lorna Kwai Ping, O’Donoghue, Margaret, Wong, Chit Ming, Yang, Lin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5029067/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27646778
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12879-016-1821-7
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author Meng, Huaiqing
Liao, Qiuyan
Suen, Lorna Kwai Ping
O’Donoghue, Margaret
Wong, Chit Ming
Yang, Lin
author_facet Meng, Huaiqing
Liao, Qiuyan
Suen, Lorna Kwai Ping
O’Donoghue, Margaret
Wong, Chit Ming
Yang, Lin
author_sort Meng, Huaiqing
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Influenza often causes winter and summer epidemics in subtropical regions, but few studies have investigated the difference in healthcare seeking behavior of patients with influenza-like illness (ILI) between these two epidemics. METHODS: Household telephone surveys were conducted using random digit dialing in Hong Kong during July-August 2014 and March-April 2015. One adult from each household was interviewed for ILI symptoms and associated healthcare seeking behaviour of themselves and one child in the household (if any), during the preceding 30 days. Healthcare seeking behavior of respondents with self-reported ILI was compared between summer and winter influenza. Logistic regression was used to explore the factors associated with healthcare seeking behavior. RESULTS: Among 516 and 539 adult respondents in the summer and winter surveys, 22.6 and 38.0 % reported ILI symptoms, and 40.9 and 46.8 % of them sought medical care, respectively. There was no significant difference in healthcare seeking behavior between the summer and winter epidemics, except a higher proportion of self-medication in summer in the adult respondents. Among 155 and 182 children reported by the adults in both surveys, the proportion of self-reported ILI was 32.9 and 40.1 % in the summer and winter surveys, respectively. Of these children, 47.1 and 56.2 % were brought for medical consultation in summer and winter, respectively. Women, adults with diabetes and those with symptoms of cough, shortness of breath, and runny nose were more likely to seek medical consultations for ILI symptoms. The factors associated with seeking medical consultations in children with ILI symptoms included being female, age under 10 years, and with symptoms of sore throat or vomiting. Those older than 60 years were less likely to self-medicate, whereas regular smokers and those with symptom of sore throat were more likely to do so. CONCLUSION: Healthcare seeking behavior of the general public was not significantly different between these two epidemics. However ILI was associated with increased healthcare utilization in both winter and summer epidemics in Hong Kong. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12879-016-1821-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-50290672016-09-27 Healthcare seeking behavior of patients with influenza like illness: comparison of the summer and winter influenza epidemics Meng, Huaiqing Liao, Qiuyan Suen, Lorna Kwai Ping O’Donoghue, Margaret Wong, Chit Ming Yang, Lin BMC Infect Dis Research Article BACKGROUND: Influenza often causes winter and summer epidemics in subtropical regions, but few studies have investigated the difference in healthcare seeking behavior of patients with influenza-like illness (ILI) between these two epidemics. METHODS: Household telephone surveys were conducted using random digit dialing in Hong Kong during July-August 2014 and March-April 2015. One adult from each household was interviewed for ILI symptoms and associated healthcare seeking behaviour of themselves and one child in the household (if any), during the preceding 30 days. Healthcare seeking behavior of respondents with self-reported ILI was compared between summer and winter influenza. Logistic regression was used to explore the factors associated with healthcare seeking behavior. RESULTS: Among 516 and 539 adult respondents in the summer and winter surveys, 22.6 and 38.0 % reported ILI symptoms, and 40.9 and 46.8 % of them sought medical care, respectively. There was no significant difference in healthcare seeking behavior between the summer and winter epidemics, except a higher proportion of self-medication in summer in the adult respondents. Among 155 and 182 children reported by the adults in both surveys, the proportion of self-reported ILI was 32.9 and 40.1 % in the summer and winter surveys, respectively. Of these children, 47.1 and 56.2 % were brought for medical consultation in summer and winter, respectively. Women, adults with diabetes and those with symptoms of cough, shortness of breath, and runny nose were more likely to seek medical consultations for ILI symptoms. The factors associated with seeking medical consultations in children with ILI symptoms included being female, age under 10 years, and with symptoms of sore throat or vomiting. Those older than 60 years were less likely to self-medicate, whereas regular smokers and those with symptom of sore throat were more likely to do so. CONCLUSION: Healthcare seeking behavior of the general public was not significantly different between these two epidemics. However ILI was associated with increased healthcare utilization in both winter and summer epidemics in Hong Kong. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12879-016-1821-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2016-09-20 /pmc/articles/PMC5029067/ /pubmed/27646778 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12879-016-1821-7 Text en © The Author(s). 2016 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Meng, Huaiqing
Liao, Qiuyan
Suen, Lorna Kwai Ping
O’Donoghue, Margaret
Wong, Chit Ming
Yang, Lin
Healthcare seeking behavior of patients with influenza like illness: comparison of the summer and winter influenza epidemics
title Healthcare seeking behavior of patients with influenza like illness: comparison of the summer and winter influenza epidemics
title_full Healthcare seeking behavior of patients with influenza like illness: comparison of the summer and winter influenza epidemics
title_fullStr Healthcare seeking behavior of patients with influenza like illness: comparison of the summer and winter influenza epidemics
title_full_unstemmed Healthcare seeking behavior of patients with influenza like illness: comparison of the summer and winter influenza epidemics
title_short Healthcare seeking behavior of patients with influenza like illness: comparison of the summer and winter influenza epidemics
title_sort healthcare seeking behavior of patients with influenza like illness: comparison of the summer and winter influenza epidemics
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5029067/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27646778
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12879-016-1821-7
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