title: [Calculation of the incidence of primary care visits due to acute respiratory infections].
abstract: Data collected by the German influenza sentinel of the Working Group on Influenza (AGI) do not allow calculation of the incidence of primary care visits due to acute respiratory infections (ARI). Because patients do not have to register with a particular general practitioner, the population covered by primary care physicians is unknown. Until now the incidence of primary care visits due to ARI is estimated indirectly by extrapolating the sentinel sample of physicians to the total number of primary care physicians caring for the total population. However, distortions of the estimated incidence occur in weeks with public holidays (particularly around Christmas and New Year) and when many physicians close their practice simultaneously because of vacation. We have attempted to quantify the shortage of medical services and established thresholds to correct for situations where service by medical providers is extraordinarily reduced. The suggested method avoids distortions to a large extent and makes interpretation of data during those critical periods possible. A second subject of the paper is the validation of the estimated ARI incidence in primary care practices by comparing the data to other sources such as sick leave statistics of health insurance as well as ICD-based data from a primary care network. We found that the estimated ARI incidence in primary care practices was in line with data from other sources and appears plausible.
authors.affiliation: Staatliches Untersuchungsamt Hessen, Dillenburg. Helmut@uphoffs.de
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Uphoff
authors.forename: U
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Buchholz
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lang
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Haas
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Stilianakis
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005858:Germany / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007251:Influenza, Human / Q000453:epidemiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D009819:Office Visits; D011320:Primary Health Care; D012141:Respiratory Tract Infections / Q000453:epidemiology*; D012621:Seasons; D018571:Sentinel Surveillance