The incidence of acute gastrointestinal illness in Sweden

Abstract

Aims: The aim of this study was to estimate the self-reported domestic incidence of acute gastrointestinal illness in the Swedish population irrespective of route of transmission or type of pathogen causing the disease. Previous studies in Sweden have primarily focused on incidence of acute gastrointestinal illness related to consumption of contaminated food and drinking water. Methods: In May 2009, we sent a questionnaire to 4000 randomly selected persons aged 0–85 years, asking about the number of episodes of stomach disease during the last 12 months. To validate the data on symptoms, we compared the study results with anonymous queries submitted to a Swedish medical website. Results: The response rate was 64%. We estimated that a total number of 2744,778 acute gastrointestinal illness episodes (95% confidence intervals 2475,641–3013,915) occurred between 1 May 2008 and 30 April 2009. Comparing the number of reported episodes with web queries indicated that the low number of episodes during the first 6 months was an effect of seasonality rather than recall bias. Further, the result of the recall bias analysis suggested that the survey captured approximately 65% of the true number of episodes among the respondents. Conclusions: The estimated number of Swedish acute gastrointestinal illness cases in this study is about five times higher than previous estimates. This study provides valuable information on the incidence of gastrointestinal symptoms in Sweden, irrespective of route of transmission, indicating a high burden of acute gastrointestinal illness, especially among children, and large societal costs, primarily due to production losses.

Training-related and competition-related risk factors for respiratory tract and gastrointestinal infections in elite cross-country skiers

“…This is substantially higher than the 0.4 episodes per year reported by these elite cross-country skiers. However, similar to the current study, Hansdotter et al 21 reported 0.3–0.4 events of acute gastrointestinal illness per person-year in Sweden in the period 2008–2009. Determining precise incidence rates of RTI and GII in the general population is challenging, since many may not report mild cold and influenza symptoms to the doctor.…”

“…However, in the current study, sex was not significantly associated with either symptom incidence or duration, nor was age a significant predictor of symptom incidence. Although previous studies have found that age influences the incidence rates of acute GII21 and RTIs,8 the age range in the current study was comparatively narrow (18–34 years). Furthermore, since there were no significant differences between the recruit and senior team, the number of years of athletic training, within the range studied, does not appear to influence the frequency of acute gastrointestinal and respiratory tract symptoms in this population.…”

Quantifying the incidence and cost of acute gastrointestinal illness in Sweden, 2013–2014

“…In one UK study, when both definite and possible cases were included, the AGI incidence increased to 523/1000 person-years [1], higher than the Swedish AGI incidence estimate. A study estimating AGI incidence in Sweden using a different methodology obtained a similar estimate, validating our result [14]. It is also possible that the overall AGI incidence has increased since cohort studies with a similar methodology were carried out in The Netherlands and the UK (1999 and 2009); in the UK, AGI incidence increased by 40% between the mid-1990s and 2009 [1].…”

“…In Sweden, one previous retrospective study attempted to measure community incidence of AGI. It estimated AGI incidence at 310/1000 person-years in 2009 [14], without assessing the AGI costs to society. In 2013, The Public Health Agency of Sweden invited 34 970 Swedish residents up to the age of 85 years, selected using random age-stratified sampling to join Hälsorapport, a prospective, population-based cohort with several objectives, among which included measuring the incidence of a range of symptoms in the Swedish population via weekly health status reports.…”

The Incidence of Acute Gastrointestinal Illness in Canada, Foodbook Survey 2014-2015

“…Diarrhea only was the predominant symptom profile of cases (55.9% and 61.1%, resp., for the two case definitions); this result falls between other studies, reporting a higher proportion in Germany (78%) and Denmark (64%) and lower proportions in Sweden, Italy, and Chile (30–40%) [ 6 , 12 , 14 , 35 , 39 ]. The proportion of diarrheal cases with bloody diarrhea (9.9%) was higher than that in other countries (3-4%) [ 5 , 12 , 13 , 35 ].…”