Elsevier

Journal of Infection

Volume 46, Issue 2, February 2003, Pages 101-105
Journal of Infection

Regular Article
What can Analysis of Calls to NHS Direct Tell us about the Epidemiology of Gastrointestinal Infections in the Community?

https://doi.org/10.1053/jinf.2002.1090Get rights and content

Abstract

Objectives: Most gastrointestinal (GI) illness within the UK goes undetected by routine surveillance. A national telephone helpline for health advice (NHS Direct) offers a new source of data on GI infection. We aim to describe NHS Direct calls suggestive of GI infection and the outcome of these calls.

Methods: Details of over 150,000 telephone calls were collected from NHS Direct over a 6-month period. Calls about ‘diarrhoea’, ‘vomiting’ or ‘food poisoning’ were defined as GI calls and described according to the age of the patient and call outcome.

Results: Gastrointestinal calls accounted for 10.3% of total calls (‘diarrhoea’=4.9%, ‘vomiting’=5.1%). GI calls as a proportion of total calls were significantly high in children under 1 year (23.5%) and aged 1–4 years (21.5%). Call outcomes which resulted in further NHS care being recommended accounted for 72.3% of total calls and 54.5% of GI calls.

Conclusions: A high proportion of NHS Direct calls were about GI symptoms especially for children under 5 years. When compared with all NHS Direct calls, GI calls were less likely to result in further NHS care being recommended. Analysis of NHS Direct calls provides further insight into GI infection in the community.

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Cited by (23)

  • Social patterning of telephone health-advice for diarrhoea and vomiting: analysis of 24 million telehealth calls in England

    2019, Journal of Infection
    Citation Excerpt :

    Further, the analyses forming this study are cross-sectional and as such, it is not possible to determine causation. One study by Cooper et al.15 exploring 150,000 GI calls to NHS Direct over a six-month period at three sites found that GI calls accounted for 10.3% of total calls; this proportion was significantly higher among children under 1 year of age (23.5%) and aged 1-4 years (21.5%). This finding is slightly higher than the 6% of calls in our study being classed as GI calls.

  • Cost-effectiveness of infant vaccination with RIX4414 (Rotarix™) in the UK

    2009, Vaccine
    Citation Excerpt :

    We used a value of one-third, which is towards the lower end of the published range, as a conservative assumption. Cooper et al. found that approximately 10% of all calls to NHS Direct are about symptoms suggestive of gastrointestinal infections, and half of these calls related to children [32]. Discussions with the National Operations Centre of NHS Direct in January 2008 confirmed that the number and demographic distribution of NHS Direct calls had remained consistent since the publication of Cooper's paper.

  • Evaluating rotavirus vaccination in England and Wales. Part II. The potential cost-effectiveness of vaccination

    2007, Vaccine
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    We also added 41% of the number NHS Direct calls for rotavirus. This is the proportion of triaged NHS Direct calls made for children under 5 years old with symptoms of gastroenteritis infection, who were advised to use self-care instead of being referred to a GP or A&E department, as reported in a study of three NHS Direct sites [13]. The number of hospital admissions for rotavirus was not included in the total because almost all of these admissions would be from a GP or A&E referral.

  • Surveillance for Seasonal and Novel Influenza Viruses

    2014, Concepts and Methods in Infectious Disease Surveillance
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Please address all correspondence to: D. L. Cooper. Tel.: +44 121 773 7077; Fax: +44 121 773 1407;E-mail address:[email protected] (D. L. Cooper).

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