Feasibility and effectiveness of daily temperature screening to detect COVID-19 in a prospective cohort at a large public university.
BMC Public Health
; 21(1): 1693, 2021 09 16.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1477394
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Many persons with active SARS-CoV-2 infection experience mild or no symptoms, presenting barriers to COVID-19 prevention. Regular temperature screening is nonetheless used in some settings, including university campuses, to reduce transmission potential. We evaluated the potential impact of this strategy using a prospective university-affiliated cohort.METHODS:
Between June and August 2020, 2912 participants were enrolled and tested for SARS-CoV-2 by PCR at least once (median 3, range 1-9). Participants reported temperature and symptoms daily via electronic survey using a previously owned or study-provided thermometer. We assessed feasibility and acceptability of daily temperature monitoring, calculated sensitivity and specificity of various fever-based strategies for restricting campus access to reduce transmission, and estimated the association between measured temperature and SARS-CoV-2 test positivity using a longitudinal binomial mixed model.RESULTS:
Most participants (70.2%) did not initially have a thermometer for taking their temperature daily. Across 5481 total person months, the average daily completion rate of temperature values was 61.6% (median 67.6%, IQR 41.8-86.2%). Sensitivity for SARS-CoV-2 ranged from 0% (95% CI 0-9.7%) to 40.5% (95% CI 25.6-56.7%) across all strategies for self-report of possible COVID-19 symptoms on day of specimen collection, with corresponding specificity of 99.9% (95% CI 99.8-100%) to 95.3% (95% CI 94.7-95.9%). An increase of 0.1 °F in individual mean body temperature on the same day as specimen collection was associated with 1.11 increased odds of SARS-CoV-2 positivity (95% CI 1.06-1.17).CONCLUSIONS:
Our study is the first, to our knowledge, that examines the feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness of daily temperature screening in a prospective cohort during an infectious disease outbreak, and the only study to assess these strategies in a university population. Daily temperature monitoring was feasible and acceptable; however, the majority of potentially infectious individuals were not detected by temperature monitoring, suggesting that temperature screening is insufficient as a primary means of detection to reduce transmission of SARS-CoV-2.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
COVID-19
Type of study:
Cohort study
/
Diagnostic study
/
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
BMC Public Health
Journal subject:
Public Health
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
S12889-021-11697-6
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