Is it flu? Most people can’t tell

Most people, including doctors, are unable to accurately self diagnose a flu infection, a survey carried out during last year’s H1N1 pandemic in New Zealand has found. The survey is reported in the Australian consumer health website www.itsmyhealth.com.au.

A study involving more than 1147 patients from 14 general practices and 540 health care workers including doctors and nurses, posed the question of whether they believed they had had influenza during the winter season.

It found that those adults who thought they had had it (23%) and those who thought they had not (21%) tested about the same in a blood test looking for remnants of the H1N1 virus (seropositivity). H1N1 was the dominant strain of flu for that season.

The same poor accuracy in self diagnosis was seen in another sub-category of the sample – a group of 300 children, in whom seropositivity rates were 40% for those who thought they’d had influenza and 46% for those who didn’t.

The full story is available at www.itsmyhealth.com.au/healthy-living/general-health/is-it-flu--most-people-cant-tell.