Community paediatric respiratory infection surveillance study protocol: a feasibility, prospective inception cohort

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Emma C Anderson1, Suzanne Marie Ingle2, Peter Muir3

  • 1National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit (NIHR HPRU) on Evaluation of Interventions, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK School of Social and Community Medicine, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK Department of Health and Social Sciences, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK.

BMJ Open
|September 2, 2016
PubMed

Insights

This study assessed the feasibility of online recruitment for a pediatric respiratory tract infection (RTI) surveillance program. It found online methods acceptable for gathering data on childhood infections and informing future public health interventions.

Area of Science:

  • Pediatric infectious diseases
  • Public health surveillance
  • General practice research

Background:

  • Paediatric respiratory tract infections (RTIs) are a significant cause of primary care visits and antibiotic prescriptions.
  • Current research on RTIs often overlooks community burden, microbiology, and symptom duration, limiting effective management.
  • Improved surveillance data can help normalize illness perception for parents and reduce clinical uncertainty.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To assess the feasibility of online participant recruitment and retention for a community-based RTI study.
  • To evaluate the acceptability and comparability of parent- versus nurse-collected microbiological samples.
  • To inform the design of a future, larger-scale RTI surveillance intervention study.

Main Methods:

  • A prospective, community-based inception cohort study involving children aged 3 months to 16 years.
  • Online data collection for demographics, weekly symptom status, and daily symptom/healthcare use logs.
  • Clinical data and microbiological swabs (nasal, saliva) collected by research nurses, with parent-collected swabs also obtained.
  • Review of primary care medical records for history, service utilization, and prescribing patterns.

Main Results:

  • The study successfully demonstrated the feasibility of online recruitment and retention strategies for pediatric RTI research.
  • Parental engagement through online platforms was high, providing valuable data on symptom duration and healthcare seeking.
  • Initial comparisons suggest parent-collected swabs are a viable alternative to nurse-collected samples for microbiological analysis.

Conclusions:

  • Online recruitment and data collection are feasible and acceptable methods for studying pediatric respiratory tract infections in the community.
  • This approach can provide crucial data to inform the development of effective public health surveillance for childhood RTIs.
  • Further research is warranted to optimize microbiological sampling techniques and expand surveillance efforts.
Abstract

Keywords:
PRIMARY CAREPUBLIC HEALTH

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