Health Services Research, Sciensano, Brussels, Belgium.
Department of Public Health and Primary Care, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
Eur J Gen Pract. 2024 Dec;30(1):2293699. doi: 10.1080/13814788.2023.2293699. Epub 2024 Jan 8.
COVID-19 may initially manifest as flu-like symptoms. As such, general practitioners (GPs) will likely to play an important role in monitoring the pandemic through syndromic surveillance.
To present a COVID-19 syndromic surveillance tool in Belgian general practices.
We performed a nationwide observational prospective study in Belgian general practices. The surveillance tool extracted the daily entries of diagnostic codes for COVID-19 and associated conditions (suspected or confirmed COVID-19, acute respiratory infection and influenza-like illness) from electronic medical records. We calculated the 7-day rolling average for these diagnoses and compared them with data from two other Belgian population-based sources (laboratory-confirmed new COVID-19 cases and hospital admissions for COVID-19), using time series analysis. We also collected data from users and stakeholders about the syndromic surveillance tool and performed a thematic analysis.
4773 out of 11,935 practising GPs in Belgium participated in the study. The curve of contacts for suspected COVID-19 followed a similar trend compared with the curves of the official data sources: laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases and hospital admissions but with a 10-day delay for the latter. Data were quickly available and useful for decision making, but some technical and methodological components can be improved, such as a greater standardisation between EMR software developers.
The syndromic surveillance tool for COVID-19 in primary care provides rapidly available data useful in all phases of the COVID-19 pandemic to support data-driven decision-making. Potential enhancements were identified for a prospective surveillance tool.
COVID-19 最初可能表现为流感样症状。因此，全科医生（GP）可能通过症状监测在监测大流行方面发挥重要作用。
介绍比利时普通实践中的 COVID-19 症状监测工具。
我们在比利时普通实践中进行了一项全国性观察性前瞻性研究。该监测工具从电子病历中提取了 COVID-19 和相关疾病（疑似或确诊 COVID-19、急性呼吸道感染和流感样疾病）的日常诊断代码。我们计算了这些诊断的 7 天滚动平均值，并使用时间序列分析将其与另外两个比利时基于人群的来源（实验室确诊的新 COVID-19 病例和 COVID-19 住院）的数据进行了比较。我们还从用户和利益相关者那里收集了有关症状监测工具的数据，并进行了主题分析。
比利时的 11935 名全科医生中有 4773 名参加了这项研究。疑似 COVID-19 的接触者曲线与官方数据来源（实验室确诊的 COVID-19 病例和 COVID-19 住院）的曲线相似，但后者存在 10 天的延迟。数据可快速获得且对决策有用，但一些技术和方法学组件可以改进，例如 EMR 软件开发人员之间更大的标准化。
初级保健中的 COVID-19 症状监测工具提供了在 COVID-19 大流行的所有阶段都有用的快速可用数据，以支持基于数据的决策。为前瞻性监测工具确定了潜在的改进。
