School absenteeism among school-aged children with medically attended acute viral respiratory illness during three influenza seasons, 2012-2013 through 2014-2015

McLean, Huong Q.; Peterson, Siri H.; King, Jennifer P.; Meece, Jennifer K.; Belongia, Edward A.

We conducted an analysis using follow-up surveys from children with ARIs. Individuals in the defined cohort were eligible for recruitment to the influenza VE study if they were ≥6 months old and presented with symptoms of cough lasting no more than seven days at the time of their visit. Consenting patients completed an enrollment interview and provided a nose and throat swab for influenza testing. From the enrollment interviews, we obtained information on age, race/ethnicity, self-reported health status prior to the onset of illness, illness onset date, and symptoms. Vaccination status was obtained from the validated vaccine registry that serves the population. 11 Approximately 1 week following enrollment, all influenza-positive patients and approximately 50 influenza-negative patients per week were contacted for a follow-up interview. For children, interviews were conducted with a parent or guardian and included questions about when the child returned to normal activities, how many days the child missed school due to the illness (numerically open-ended), and medications prescribed and taken. The answer to the question, "how many days of school did your child miss, due to this illness" was used to assess school absenteeism. Responses larger than the maximum number of weekdays between illness onset and follow-up interviews were truncated to the maximum weekdays within the interval (nine observations were truncated).