Prevalence of respiratory tract infections and influencing factors: A cross-sectional survey in Anhui Province, China.

Abstract

Objectives: This study used available data to analyze the prevalence and influencing factors of various Respiratory tract infections (RTIs), to better our understanding of the local and national epidemiology, and to inform future prevention and control programs.

Design: We used a structured questionnaire to solicit information about social demographics and symptoms of the last RTI administered with stratified clustered randomized sampling. Descriptive analysis was used to investigate the reported symptoms, and multivariate logistic regression models to identify relationships between the prevalence and influencing factors of common RTIs.

Results: The study documented a prevalence rate of 1.5% for common cold, 0.5% for influenza, and 0.9% for 9-AURTIs (nine acute upper RTIs, including acute pharyngitis, sore throat, acute tonsillitis, acute suppurative tonsillitis, acute laryngitis, acute bronchitis, acute pharyngitis, acute upper RTI, and viral upper RTI), adding up to 3.4% of overall RTIs in the past 2 weeks. Results also revealed a L-shaped trend along age-axis for all the RTIs, and marginal to moderate associations between RTIs and other commonly researched factors (education, body mass index, sex, and annual income), as well as environmental and behavior factors.

Conclusions: RTIs in Anhui, China are common and associated with a variety of socio-demographic, behavioral, and environmental factors. RTIs merit better epidemiological understanding and added interventions tailored to efforts in reducing their health and economic burden. These understandings and efforts are especially relevant for public health nurses since most RTI patients are treated in community settings.