TY - GEN T1 - Acute gastrointestinal illness in adults in Germany: a population-based telephone survey AU - Wilking, Hendrik AU - Spitznagel, H. AU - Werber, Dirk AU - Lange, Cornelia AU - Jansen, Andreas AU - Stark, Klaus AB - Population-based estimates of incidence and risk factors for acute gastrointestinal illness (AGI) are important for infectious disease surveillance and healthcare planning. We conducted a nationwide representative cross-sectional telephone survey of 21 262 adults over a 12-month period during 2008–2009 in Germany. Participants were asked if they had either AGI-related diarrhoea or vomiting in a 4-week recall period. We estimated 0·95 episodes/person per year (95% confidence interval 0·90–0·99), corresponding to 64·9 million episodes of AGI annually in adults, which results in 24·5 million outpatient visits, 19·9 million hospital days and 63·2 million days of work lost. We observed an overall declining trend of AGI with increasing age. Diarrhoea was more often reported than vomiting. The mean duration of illness was 3·8 days and did not differ between age groups. Social factors seemed to be weak predictors compared to state of health and health behaviour characteristics. This study allows international comparisons and contributes to the estimation of the global burden of AGI. KW - Humans KW - Female KW - Male KW - Adolescent KW - Adult KW - Aged KW - Germany/epidemiology KW - Middle Aged KW - Risk Factors KW - Young Adult KW - Population Surveillance KW - Aged 80 and over KW - Telephone KW - Incidence KW - Data Collection KW - Gastrointestinal Diseases/epidemiology KW - 610 Medizin PY - 2013 LA - eng PB - Robert Koch-Institut, Epidemiologie und Gesundheitsberichterstattung; Robert Koch-Institut, Infektionsepidemiologie VL - 141 IS - 11 DO - 10.1017/S0950268813000046 ER -