Epidemiology and Infection
- Epidemiology and Infection / Volume 140 / Issue 07 / July 2012, pp 1193-1206
- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011 The online version of this article is published within an Open Access environment subject to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike licence <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/>. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use.
- DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0950268811002020 (About DOI), Published online: 21 October 2011
- OPEN ACCESS
Burden of gastroenteritis
The burden of self-reported acute gastrointestinal illness in Italy: a retrospective survey, 2008–2009
G. SCAVIAa1 c1, F. BALDINELLIa1, L. BUSANIa1a2 and A. CAPRIOLIa1
a1 Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy
a2 Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie, Padua, Italy
SUMMARY
A retrospective telephone survey (n=3490) was conducted in Italy between 2008 and 2009 to estimate the occurrence of self-reported acute gastrointestinal illness (AGI) and to describe subjects' recourse to healthcare, using a symptom-based case definition. Three hundred and ten AGI cases were identified. The annual incidence rate was 1·08 episodes/person-year (95% confidence interval 0·90–1·14). The proportion of subjects consulting physicians was 39·5% while only 0·3% submitted a specimen for laboratory investigation. Risk factors for AGI and medical care-seeking were identified using logistic regression analysis. Females, children and young adults had a significantly higher incidence rate of AGI. Factors associated with medical care-seeking were age <10 years, presence of fever, diarrhoea, and duration of illness >3 days. Our results provide a relevant contribution towards estimating the global burden of AGI using standard methods that ensure a good level of comparability with other studies.
(Accepted September 07 2011)
(Online publication October 21 2011)
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Correspondence:
c1 Author for correspondence: Dr G. Scavia, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Viale Regina Elena, 299, 00161 Rome, Italy. (Email: gaia.scavia@iss.it)
