Trajectories of symptoms and healthcare use following respiratory tract infections in rural Anhui, China：a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND

Respiratory tract infections (RTIs) are important health problems with high incidence and consequent economic costs. The study aimed to analyze trajectories of experienced RTI symptoms and use of healthcare and antibiotics.

METHOD

The study adopted a cross-sectional design and face-face interview using a structured questionnaire. The questionnaire comprised: a) social demographics; b) last episode of symptomatic RTIs; c) responses to the RTIs; d) antibiotics obtained from clinics and medicine shops for the RTIs. The study subjects were residents in randomly selected villages in Anhui, China. The study settings were the residents households. Descriptive analyses were conducted to draw symptoms trajectory and identify relationship between healthcare seeking and symptoms and common sociodemographic variables.

RESULT

A total 91.1% (1968) of 2160 eligible residents completed the interview who reported 1.83 episodes of RTIs in the pass year on average. Over half (54.8%) of these RTI episodes had led to visit to clinics for professional care and 51.9%, to use of antibiotics. The trajectories of common RTI symptoms featured a sharp increase and peak followed by a long tail along the days after onset of the infection. Over 60.5% of healthcare-seeking happened between two days before and one day after the symptoms peak. The study also revealed interesting pattern in the timing of different type of treatment following, e.g., taking leftover medicine and antibiotics happened the earliest and seeking professional help and getting antibiotics from clinics, the latest.

CONCLUSION

RTIs incur a large volume of healthcare-seeking and antibiotics use and there is an urgent need for effective education measures on proper service especially antibiotics use. Patients' reported RTI symptoms manifest peculiar trajectories and their retrospective recall of the course of prior RTI episodes and associated actions may guide their future responses to similar infections. Knowledge of these may help inform doctors about patient expectations, enabling them better manage shared decision- making around antibiotic treatment.