University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
Epidemiological Operations Unit, City of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
PLoS One. 2022 Aug 5;17(8):e0272040. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0272040. eCollection 2022.
Health care professionals working in primary and specialized care typically search for medical information from Internet sources. In Finland, Physician's Databases are online portals aimed at professionals seeking medical information. As dosage errors may occur when prescribing medication to children, professionals' need for reliable medical information has increased in public health care centers and hospitals. Influenza continues to be a public health threat, with young children at risk of developing severe illness and easily transmitting the virus. Oseltamivir is used to treat children with influenza. The objective of this study was to compare searches for children's oseltamivir and influenza diagnoses in primary and specialized care, and to determine if the searches could aid detection of influenza outbreaks.
We compared searches in Physician's Databases for children's oral suspension of oseltamivir (6 mg/mL) for influenza diagnoses of children under 7 years and laboratory findings of influenza A and B from the National Infectious Disease Register. Searches and diagnoses were assessed in primary and specialized care across Finland by season from 2012-2016. The Moving Epidemic Method (MEM) calculated seasonal starts and ends, and paired differences in the mean compared two indicators. Correlation was tested to compare seasons.
We found that searches and diagnoses in primary and specialized care showed visually similar patterns annually. The MEM-calculated starting weeks in searches appeared mainly in the same week. Oseltamivir searches in primary care preceded diagnoses by -1.0 weeks (95% CI: -3.0, -0.3; p = 0.132) with very high correlation (τ = 0.913). Specialized care oseltamivir searches and diagnoses correlated moderately (τ = 0.667).
Health care professionals' searches for children's oseltamivir in online databases linked with the registers of children's influenza diagnoses in primary and specialized care. Therefore, database searches should be considered as supplementary information in disease surveillance when detecting influenza epidemics.
在初级保健和专科医疗中工作的医疗保健专业人员通常从互联网资源中搜索医学信息。在芬兰，Physician's Databases 是面向寻求医学信息的专业人员的在线门户。由于在为儿童开处方时可能会出现剂量错误，因此公共医疗保健中心和医院的专业人员对可靠医学信息的需求有所增加。流感仍然是公共卫生威胁，幼儿有患重病和易传播病毒的风险。奥司他韦用于治疗儿童流感。本研究的目的是比较初级保健和专科医疗中儿童奥司他韦和流感诊断的搜索，并确定搜索是否有助于发现流感爆发。
我们比较了 Physician's Databases 中儿童口服奥司他韦混悬液（6mg/mL）用于治疗 7 岁以下儿童流感诊断和国家传染病登记处流感 A 和 B 实验室检测结果的搜索。通过季节在芬兰各地的初级保健和专科医疗中评估搜索和诊断，从 2012-2016 年。移动流行法（MEM）计算季节性开始和结束，并通过比较两个指标的均值配对差异来评估差异。相关性用于比较季节。
我们发现初级保健和专科保健中的搜索和诊断每年呈现出相似的模式。MEM 计算的搜索起始周主要在同一周。初级保健中的奥司他韦搜索比诊断提前了-1.0 周（95%CI：-3.0，-0.3；p=0.132），相关性非常高（τ=0.913）。专科保健中的奥司他韦搜索和诊断相关性中等（τ=0.667）。
医疗保健专业人员在在线数据库中搜索儿童奥司他韦，这些数据库与初级保健和专科保健中儿童流感诊断的登记册相关联。因此，在检测流感流行时，数据库搜索应被视为疾病监测的补充信息。
