Acute gastrointestinal illness in New Zealand: a community study

Abstract

We report the results of the New Zealand Acute Gastrointestinal Illness (AGI) Community Study, a representative cross-sectional community telephone survey of 3655 participants conducted over a 12-month period. Respondents were asked questions about vomiting and diarrhoea in the previous 4 weeks. At least one episode of diarrhoea and/or vomiting was reported by 8·6% of respondents, an incidence of 1·11 episodes/person per year. Prevalence was highest in children aged <5 years and lowest in those aged >64 years. The mean duration of illness was 2·5 days and most common symptoms were diarrhoea (82·5%), stomach cramps (75·7%), nausea (56·9%) and vomiting (49·0%). Extrapolation of the adjusted estimates indicates there are about 4·66 million episodes of AGI per year in New Zealand, nearly 1 million visits to the general medical practitioner, in excess of 300,000 courses of antibiotics being dispensed and more than 4·5 million days of paid work lost due to AGI. This represents a significant burden of disease.

Burden of acute gastroenteritis and healthcare-seeking behaviour in France: a population-based study

“…42 to 1 . 3 episodes/person-year) [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13], but higher than rates from prospective follow-up studies in England and Wales (0 . 19) [13] and The Netherlands (0 .…”

“…The exclusion rate due to non-infectious causes in our study is much higher than in most other studies; 46 % of the episodes were excluded compared to 28 . 6% in New Zealand [4], and 16 % in Ontario [15]. This high exclusion rate may be due to more restrictive exclusion criteria resulting in a lower estimate of the incidence of AG.…”

Disease burden of selected gastrointestinal pathogens in Australia, 2010

“…20 Although study design can impact estimated AGE rates, the NGSII-2008 study was designed to mirror the earlier national gastroenteritis survey and the estimated AGE rates were similar to international estimates. 2,68,69 Heterogeneity in data sources used could account for some of the apparent differences in pathogen-specific estimates presented in this study. However, we attempted to identify the most credible data source for each data point, which resulted in the use of different data sources within and between pathogen disease models.…”

Acute gastrointestinal illness in adults in Germany: a population-based telephone survey

“…The methodology for community surveys has improved over the years and a common case definition was established to ensure international comparability [1][2][3]. These efforts resulted in cross-sectional studies for estimates for the burden of AGI from various countries [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] and additionally a few population-based cohort studies [19][20][21].…”