Observational studyEpidemiology and infection2015
Internet-based remote health self-checker symptom data as an adjuvant to a national syndromic surveillance system.
Observational study in Epidemiology and infection, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- School-based surveillance of acute infectious disease in children: a systematic review.BMC infectious diseases · 2021Pooled it
- Rheumatic? A diagnostic decision support tool for individuals suspecting rheumatic diseases: Mixed-methods usability and acceptability study.BMC rheumatology · 2025Article
- Accuracy of Dental Symptom Checker Web Application in the Singapore Military Population.International dental journal · 2025Article
- Accuracy of online symptom assessment applications, large language models, and laypeople for self-triage decisions.NPJ digital medicine · 2025Article
- Predicting the incidence of infectious diarrhea with symptom surveillance data using a stacking-based ensembled model.BMC infectious diseases · 2024Article
- Triage Accuracy of Symptom Checker Apps: 5-Year Follow-up Evaluation.Journal of medical Internet research · 2022Article
- A scoping review on the use and usefulness of online symptom checkers and triage systems: How to proceed?Frontiers in medicine · 2022Article
- Patients' Utilization and Perception of an Artificial Intelligence-Based Symptom Assessment and Advice Technology in a British Primary Care Waiting Room: Exploratory Pilot Study.JMIR human factors · 2020Article
- Research data management in health and biomedical citizen science: practices and prospects.JAMIA open · 2020Article
- Syndromic surveillance and its utilisation for mass gatherings.Epidemiology and infection · 2018Article
- Online Symptom Checker Applications: Syndromic Surveillance for International Health.Ochsner journal · 2018Article
- Self-triage for acute primary care via a smartphone application: Practical, safe and efficient?PloS one · 2018Article
- Correcting for day of the week and public holiday effects: improving a national daily syndromic surveillance service for detecting public health threats.BMC public health · 2017Article
- Some Innovative Approaches for Public Health and Epidemiology Informatics.Yearbook of medical informatics · 2016Article
- Evaluation of symptom checkers for self diagnosis and triage: audit study.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2015Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Syndromic surveillance is an innovative surveillance tool used to support national surveillance programmes. Recent advances in the use of internet-based health data have demonstrated the potential usefulness of these health data; however, there have been limited studies comparing these innovative health data to existing established syndromic surveillance systems. We conducted a retrospective observational study to assess the usefulness of a national internet-based 'symptom checker' service for use as a syndromic surveillance system. NHS Direct online data were extracted for 1 August 2012 to 1 July 2013; a time-series analysis on the symptom categories self-reported by online users was undertaken and compared to existing telehealth syndromic data. There were 3·37 million online users of the internet-based self-checker compared to 1·43 million callers to the telephone triage health service. There was a good correlation between the online and telephone triage data for a number of syndromic indicators including cold/flu, difficulty breathing and eye problems; however, online data appeared to provide additional early warning over telephone triage health data. This assessment has illustrated some potential benefit of using internet-based symptom-checker data and provides the basis for further investigating how these data can be incorporated into national syndromic surveillance programmes.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.