Acute respiratory infection symptoms and COVID-19 testing behaviour: results based on South Australian health surveys

Abstract

Background Effective syndromic surveillance alongside COVID-19 testing behaviours in the population including in higher risk and hard to reach subgroups is vital to detect re-emergence of COVID-19 transmission in the community. The aim of this paper was to identify the prevalence of acute respiratory infection symptoms and coronavirus testing behaviour among South Australians using data from a population based survey. Methods We used cross-sectional data from the 2020 state-wide population level health survey on 6857 respondents aged 18 years and above. Descriptive statistics were used to explore the risk factors and multivariable logistic regression models were used to assess the factors associated with the acute respiratory infection symptoms and coronavirus testing behaviour after adjusting for gender, age, household size, household income, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander status, SEIFA, Country of birth, number of chronic diseases, wellbeing, psychological distress, and mental health. Results We found that 19.3% of respondents reported having symptoms of acute respiratory infection and the most commonly reported symptoms were a runny nose (11.2%), coughing (9.9%) and sore throat (6.2%). Fever and cough were reported by 0.8% of participants. Of the symptomatic respondents, 32.6% reported seeking health advice from a nurse, doctor or healthcare provider. Around 18% (n = 130) of symptomatic respondents had sought testing and a further 4.3% (n = 31) reported they intended to get tested. The regression results suggest that older age, larger household size, a higher number of chronic disease, mental health condition, poor wellbeing, and psychological distress were associated with higher odds of ARI symptoms. Higher household income was associated with lower odds of being tested or intending to be tested for coronavirus after adjusting for other explanatory variables. Conclusions There were relatively high rates of self-reported acute respiratory infection during a period of very low COVID-19 prevalence and low rate of coronavirus testing among symptomatic respondents. Ongoing monitoring of testing uptake, including in higher-risk groups, and possible interventions to improve testing uptake is key to early detection of disease.

COVID-19 testing avoidance among patients with cardiovascular disease

“…The copyright holder for this preprint this version posted April 20, 2023. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.04.17.23288710 doi: medRxiv preprint system in place to detect infections as early as possible is important, both when the number of infections is high and when the community is largely under control. 7 While many studies focusing on vaccine hesitancy have been conducted, research on COVID-19 test hesitancy is limited. Therefore, we utilized a large epidemiological database obtained from an online survey to analyze the hesitancy of COVID-19 testing in patients with cardiovascular disease.…”

“…This result is not necessarily surprising as survey of community residents in other countries collected from 2020 to 2021 also reported a high rate of failure to test when symptomatic. 7,11,12 Social strategies to prevent infection have a spectrum of negative effects on economic, occupational, health, and lifestyle parameters. Thus, health literacy declines significantly over time.…”

“…Previous reports on COVID-19 testing avoidance have mainly focused on social factors, such as laboratory center hours, inaccessibility, location of centers, commercial strategies, and decisions on how to assign tests. 6,7,11,12 In addition, several studies on stigma in the early stages of COVID-19 pandemic have been conducted. 20,22 Our study focused on patient attributes related to COVID-19 test avoidance, including clinical .…”