[The discharge form: advantages and limits legionellosis cases individuation].
Despite legionellosis surveillance is active in Italy since many years, the disease notification appears still undervalued. A multicentric survey was carried out among 5 big Italian hospitals. It examined 11,435 discharge forms (1999-2001), reporting pneumonia diagnosis. Legionellosis (II class of notify system for infectious disease) was studied among pneumonia diagnosis by discharge forms. According to the ICD9-CM, there's no specific code for legionellosis (this disease is included among "others gram-negative pneumonia"). So the presumed pneumonia imputable to Legionella spp were the 2.7% of the whole number of analyzed discharge forms. Besides, the data regarding the other pneumonia showed that the etiological agent was specified only in the 11.2% of the case. This situation could be rectified both introducing adequate discharge forms codes and promoting the etiological diagnosis during the hospital stay.
Trerotoli
P
P
Dipartimento di Medicina Interna e Medicina Pubblica, Sezione di Igiene, Università degli Studi di Bari.
Montagna
M T
MT
Borella
P
P
Romano Spica
V
V
Stancanelli
G
G
Triassi
M
M
Serio
G
G
Napoli
C
C
Soldano
S
S
Tatò
D
D
Vercilli
F
F
Gentile
C
C
Quaranta
G
G
Volpe
M
M
Ambrosio
A
A
Santarpia
R
R
Montegrosso
S
S
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002648:Child; D006801:Humans; D007876:Legionellosis; D008875:Middle Aged; D010351:Patient Discharge; D011996:Records