Yusuke Katayama1, Kosuke Kiyohara2, Sho Komukai3, Tetsuhisa Kitamura4, Kenichiro Ishida5, Tomoya Hirose6, Tasuku Matsuyama7, Takeyuki Kiguchi8, Takeshi Shimazu9. 1. Department of Traumatology and Acute Critical Medicine, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Suita, Japan. Electronic address: orion13@hp-emerg.med.osaka-u.ac.jp. 2. Department of Food Science, Faculty of Home Economics, Otsuma Women's University Tokyo, Japan. 3. Division of Biomedical Statistics, Department of Integrated Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Suita, Japan. 4. Division of Environmental Medicine and Population Sciences, Department of Social and Environmental Medicine, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Suita, Japan. 5. Department of Acute Medicine and Critical Care Medical Center, Osaka National Hospital, National Hospital Organization, Osaka, Japan. 6. Department of Traumatology and Acute Critical Medicine, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Suita, Japan; Emergency and Critical Care Center, Osaka Police Hospital, Osaka, Japan. 7. Department of Emergency Medicine, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan. 8. Kyoto University Health Services, Kyoto, Japan. 9. Department of Traumatology and Acute Critical Medicine, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Suita, Japan.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Earlier syndromic surveillance may be effective in preventing the spread of infectious disease. However, there has been no research on syndromic surveillance for rotavirus. The study aimed to assess the relationship between the incidence of rotavirus infections and the number of telephone triages for associated symptoms in pediatric patients under 4 years old in Osaka prefecture, Japan. METHODS: This was a retrospective observational study for which the study period was the 3 years between January 2015 and December 2017. We analyzed data on children under 4 years old who were triaged by telephone triage nurses using software. The primary endpoint was the number of rotavirus patients under 4 years triaged old per week. Using a linear regression model, we calculated the R square value of the regression model to assess the relationship between the number of patients with rotavirus and the number of telephone triages made for associated symptoms. Covariates in the linear regression model were the week number indicating seasonality and the weekly number of telephone triages related to rotavirus symptoms such as stomachache and vomiting. RESULTS: During the study period, there were 102,336 patients with rotavirus, and the number of people triaged by telephone was 123,720. The highest correlation coefficient was 0.921 in the regression model with the number of telephone triages for "stomachache + nausea/vomiting" and "stomachache + diarrhea + nausea/vomiting". CONCLUSION: The number of telephone triage symptoms was positively related to the incidence of pediatric patients with rotavirus in a large metropolitan area of Japan.
BACKGROUND: Earlier syndromic surveillance may be effective in preventing the spread of infectious disease. However, there has been no research on syndromic surveillance for rotavirus. The study aimed to assess the relationship between the incidence of rotavirus infections and the number of telephone triages for associated symptoms in pediatric patients under 4 years old in Osaka prefecture, Japan. METHODS: This was a retrospective observational study for which the study period was the 3 years between January 2015 and December 2017. We analyzed data on children under 4 years old who were triaged by telephone triage nurses using software. The primary endpoint was the number of rotavirus patients under 4 years triaged old per week. Using a linear regression model, we calculated the R square value of the regression model to assess the relationship between the number of patients with rotavirus and the number of telephone triages made for associated symptoms. Covariates in the linear regression model were the week number indicating seasonality and the weekly number of telephone triages related to rotavirus symptoms such as stomachache and vomiting. RESULTS: During the study period, there were 102,336 patients with rotavirus, and the number of people triaged by telephone was 123,720. The highest correlation coefficient was 0.921 in the regression model with the number of telephone triages for "stomachache + nausea/vomiting" and "stomachache + diarrhea + nausea/vomiting". CONCLUSION: The number of telephone triage symptoms was positively related to the incidence of pediatric patients with rotavirus in a large metropolitan area of Japan.