The Survey Effectiveness of Active Method in Communicable Disease Surveillance

Background and purpose: Surveillance is a system of continuing health checks, is considered&nbsp;as a critical part of public health practice for planning and implantation of effective prevention&nbsp;and control interventions for communicable diseases in the region. The aim of this study was to&nbsp;determine the effects of an active method of data collection on the improvement of these&nbsp;diseases surveillance. Materials and Methods: This research was an interventional study that carried out from&nbsp;January 2011 to January 2013. We surveyed the number of reporting communicable diseases&nbsp;before and after this modification on collecting data in our region and compared them. We&nbsp;changed the method of data collection from passive to active by experts. The collected data&nbsp;analysis was performed by SPSS software using descriptive statistics and independent samples t-test. Results: A total of 763 physicians enrolled, of whom 327 were employed in the health centers&nbsp;non-affiliated to the university. In the centers non-affiliated to the university, the mean&nbsp;reporting from these centers were 12.0 &plusmn; 8.7 [95% confidence interval (CI): 11.1-13.0] after the&nbsp;intervention, compared with 2.8 &plusmn; 3.7 (95% CI: 2.4-3.2) before the intervention. The mean&nbsp;reporting from affiliated centers did not change considerably after the intervention (11.7 &plusmn; 16.1&nbsp;vs. 12.1 &plusmn; 16.3). The mean reporting of both groups in 2012 was significantly different from&nbsp;that in 2011 (P < 0.001). But no difference was observed between mean reporting of two groups&nbsp;throughout 2012 (P = 0.998). Conclusion: We recommend the active method for collecting data of communicable disease,&nbsp;especially from the physicians in centers non-affiliated to the university.&nbsp;