• Núria Torner, Núria Soldevila, Juan Jose Garcia, Cristian Launes, Pere Godoy, Jesús Castilla, Angela Domínguez, and CIBERESP Cases and Controls in Pandemic Influenza Working Group, Spain.
• Public Health Agency of Catalonia, Cr Roc Boronat 81-95, 08005, Barcelona, Spain. nuria.torner@gencat.cat.
• Bmc Public Health. 2015 Jun 9; 15: 543.

BackgroundHygiene behavior plays a relevant role in infectious disease transmission. The aim of this study was to evaluate non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) in preventing pediatric influenza infections.MethodsLaboratory confirmed influenza cases occurred during 2009-10 and 2010-11 seasons matched by age and date of consultation. NPI (frequency of hand washing, alcohol-based hand sanitizer use and hand washing after touching contaminated surfaces) during seven days prior to onset of symptoms were obtained from parents of cases and controls.ResultsCases presented higher prevalence of underlying conditions such as pneumonia [OR = 3.23; 95% CI: 1.38-7.58 p = 0.007], asthma [OR = 2.45; 95% CI: 1.17-5.14 p = 0.02] and having more than 1 risk factor [OR = 1.67; 95% CI: 0.99-2.82 p = 0.05]. Hand washing more than 5 times per day [aOR = 0.62; 95% CI: 0.39-0.99 p = 0.04] was the only statistically significant protective factor. When considering two age groups (pre-school age 0-4 yrs and school age 5-17) yrs , only the school age group showed a negative association for influenza infection for both washing more than 5 times per day [aOR = 0.47; 95% CI: 0.22-0.99 p = 0.04] and hand washing after touching contaminated surfaces [aOR = 0.19; 95% CI: 0.04-0.86 p = 0.03].ConclusionFrequent hand washing should be recommended to prevent influenza infection in the community setting and in special in the school age group.

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