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Comparison between two common methods for reporting cold and diarrhoea symptoms of children in daycare centre
H Carabin1, T W Gyorkos, J C Soto
1Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McGill University, Montréal, Canada. helene.carabin@ceid.ox.ac.uk
Insights
Parent and educator reports on child infections in day care centers show low agreement. Parents' data likely provide more accurate estimates of illness incidence, highlighting their value in tracking infections.
Area of Science:
- Pediatrics
- Infectious Diseases
- Public Health
Background:
- Rising attendance in day care centers (DCCs) increases focus on infection transmission.
- Understanding infection occurrence in child care settings is crucial for public health.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess agreement between parent and educator reporting of respiratory and diarrheal infections in DCCs.
- Compare the validity of parent-reported versus educator-reported infection data.
Main Methods:
- A 15-month study in 52 Quebec DCCs involving 333 parents and educators.
- Both groups used calendars to track colds and diarrhea.
- Parents were contacted bi-weekly; educators submitted monthly reports.
Main Results:
- Low agreement observed between parent and educator methods (13.5% for colds, 9.8% for diarrhea).
- Parental reporting yielded higher incidence rate estimates for both infection types.
- Discrepancies suggest differing perspectives on illness reporting.
Conclusions:
- Parental reporting of infections in DCCs appears more comprehensive than educator reporting.
- Parent data may offer a more valid estimation of infection incidence rates.
- This highlights the importance of parental surveillance in child care settings.
Background:
The increasing number of children attending day care centres (DCCs) in industrialized countries has refocused attention on the occurrence of infections and infectious diseases in these settings.
Objective:
To evaluate the agreement between two methods (parent method vs. educator method) for reporting the occurrence of respiratory and diarrhoeal infections.
Methods:
Fifty-two DCCs in Quebec, Canada, participated. Both educators and parents were invited to fill in calendars on which they would indicate the occurrence of colds and diarrhoea. For the parents' method, parents were telephoned biweekly to record their calendar information. For the educators' method, educators returned their calendar pages monthly (following prompting by phone, when necessary).
Results:
Three hundred and thirty-three parents of toddlers participated in the 15-month reporting period between September 1996 and November 1997. The average agreement between the two methods was low (13.5% for colds and 9.8% for diarrhoea). Overall estimates of the incidence rates of respiratory and diarrhoeal infections based on parents' method were higher than those based on educators' method.
Conclusions:
Parents' data lead to larger estimations of incidence rates and are probably more valid than educators' data.