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The effectiveness of visual triaging and testing of suspected COVID-19 cases in primary care setting in Saudi Arabia

INTRODUCTION: Asymptomatic individuals could be a source of spreading the infection, especially in their households. Triaging and testing an individual for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infection rely on the criteria included in the adopted triaging instrument, and adopted case definition of a susp...

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Autores principales: Abdalrouf, Abuobieda, Ibrahim, Alaa, Abdulmogith, Mohammed, Yousif, Attiat, Al Okeil, Nawaf, Al Otaibi, Azzam, Albattal, Saad, AlAbood, Abood, Maher, Medhat, AlRasheed, Abdelaziz, Kofi, Mostafa
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Wolters Kluwer - Medknow 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8797076/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35136802
http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_652_21
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author Abdalrouf, Abuobieda
Ibrahim, Alaa
Abdulmogith, Mohammed
Yousif, Attiat
Al Okeil, Nawaf
Al Otaibi, Azzam
Albattal, Saad
AlAbood, Abood
Maher, Medhat
AlRasheed, Abdelaziz
Kofi, Mostafa
author_facet Abdalrouf, Abuobieda
Ibrahim, Alaa
Abdulmogith, Mohammed
Yousif, Attiat
Al Okeil, Nawaf
Al Otaibi, Azzam
Albattal, Saad
AlAbood, Abood
Maher, Medhat
AlRasheed, Abdelaziz
Kofi, Mostafa
author_sort Abdalrouf, Abuobieda
collection PubMed
description INTRODUCTION: Asymptomatic individuals could be a source of spreading the infection, especially in their households. Triaging and testing an individual for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infection rely on the criteria included in the adopted triaging instrument, and adopted case definition of a suspected case. They both may need to be reviewed and modified to make them more effective in making the right decision. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was used to find out the effectiveness of triaging instrument and the case definition used in the fever clinic (FC) in one of our primary care centers. The data of 630 randomly selected participants who were tested in our center between April 12 and August 12 2020 were analyzed. RESULTS: About 36.8% of the 630 tested participants were positive for COVID-19. Symptomatic patients were 3.93 (95% CI; 2.58, 5.98; P < 0.001) times more likely to test positive than asymptomatic ones. The participants with a history of contact with a COVID-19 confirmed case were 1.47 (95% CI; 1.03, 2.10; P = 0.032) times more likely to test positive compared to those without such history. Symptomatic with and without history of contact were 8.40 (95% CI; 3.23, 21.86; P < 0.001) and 4.91 (95% CI; 1.84, 13.09; P < 0.001) times more likely to test positive compared to asymptomatic contact, respectively. Moreover, patients with comorbidity were also 1.85 (95% CI; 1.31, 2.60; P < 0.001) times more likely to test positive than healthy ones. The mean of the number of the households, and the mean of the number of households tested positive significantly exceeded the means of those tested negative by 1.03 (95% CI; 0.48, 1.57; P < 0.001), and 0.98 (95% CI; 0.68, 1.28; P < 0.001), respectively. From the studied triaging items only symptoms, comorbidities, and the number of households tested positive were independently associated with testing positive. Moreover, from studied symptoms, only fever, cough, myalgia, and loss of taste and smell were independently associated with testing positive. Finally, from the studied comorbidities, only diabetes mellitus was independently associated with testing positive. CONCLUSION: At the time of outbreak and pandemic, people get worried and need to be reassured, and contacts would then seek testing. However, resources including manpower, material, and money need to be protected and used wisely. Thus, the adoption of an evidence-based updated testing policy is crucially needed. Furthermore, early identification of the potential sources of the infection is also crucially needed to control the spreading of the infection.
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spelling pubmed-87970762022-02-07 The effectiveness of visual triaging and testing of suspected COVID-19 cases in primary care setting in Saudi Arabia Abdalrouf, Abuobieda Ibrahim, Alaa Abdulmogith, Mohammed Yousif, Attiat Al Okeil, Nawaf Al Otaibi, Azzam Albattal, Saad AlAbood, Abood Maher, Medhat AlRasheed, Abdelaziz Kofi, Mostafa J Family Med Prim Care Original Article INTRODUCTION: Asymptomatic individuals could be a source of spreading the infection, especially in their households. Triaging and testing an individual for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infection rely on the criteria included in the adopted triaging instrument, and adopted case definition of a suspected case. They both may need to be reviewed and modified to make them more effective in making the right decision. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was used to find out the effectiveness of triaging instrument and the case definition used in the fever clinic (FC) in one of our primary care centers. The data of 630 randomly selected participants who were tested in our center between April 12 and August 12 2020 were analyzed. RESULTS: About 36.8% of the 630 tested participants were positive for COVID-19. Symptomatic patients were 3.93 (95% CI; 2.58, 5.98; P < 0.001) times more likely to test positive than asymptomatic ones. The participants with a history of contact with a COVID-19 confirmed case were 1.47 (95% CI; 1.03, 2.10; P = 0.032) times more likely to test positive compared to those without such history. Symptomatic with and without history of contact were 8.40 (95% CI; 3.23, 21.86; P < 0.001) and 4.91 (95% CI; 1.84, 13.09; P < 0.001) times more likely to test positive compared to asymptomatic contact, respectively. Moreover, patients with comorbidity were also 1.85 (95% CI; 1.31, 2.60; P < 0.001) times more likely to test positive than healthy ones. The mean of the number of the households, and the mean of the number of households tested positive significantly exceeded the means of those tested negative by 1.03 (95% CI; 0.48, 1.57; P < 0.001), and 0.98 (95% CI; 0.68, 1.28; P < 0.001), respectively. From the studied triaging items only symptoms, comorbidities, and the number of households tested positive were independently associated with testing positive. Moreover, from studied symptoms, only fever, cough, myalgia, and loss of taste and smell were independently associated with testing positive. Finally, from the studied comorbidities, only diabetes mellitus was independently associated with testing positive. CONCLUSION: At the time of outbreak and pandemic, people get worried and need to be reassured, and contacts would then seek testing. However, resources including manpower, material, and money need to be protected and used wisely. Thus, the adoption of an evidence-based updated testing policy is crucially needed. Furthermore, early identification of the potential sources of the infection is also crucially needed to control the spreading of the infection. Wolters Kluwer - Medknow 2021-11 2021-11-29 /pmc/articles/PMC8797076/ /pubmed/35136802 http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_652_21 Text en Copyright: © 2021 Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/This is an open access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.
spellingShingle Original Article
Abdalrouf, Abuobieda
Ibrahim, Alaa
Abdulmogith, Mohammed
Yousif, Attiat
Al Okeil, Nawaf
Al Otaibi, Azzam
Albattal, Saad
AlAbood, Abood
Maher, Medhat
AlRasheed, Abdelaziz
Kofi, Mostafa
The effectiveness of visual triaging and testing of suspected COVID-19 cases in primary care setting in Saudi Arabia
title The effectiveness of visual triaging and testing of suspected COVID-19 cases in primary care setting in Saudi Arabia
title_full The effectiveness of visual triaging and testing of suspected COVID-19 cases in primary care setting in Saudi Arabia
title_fullStr The effectiveness of visual triaging and testing of suspected COVID-19 cases in primary care setting in Saudi Arabia
title_full_unstemmed The effectiveness of visual triaging and testing of suspected COVID-19 cases in primary care setting in Saudi Arabia
title_short The effectiveness of visual triaging and testing of suspected COVID-19 cases in primary care setting in Saudi Arabia
title_sort effectiveness of visual triaging and testing of suspected covid-19 cases in primary care setting in saudi arabia
topic Original Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8797076/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35136802
http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_652_21
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