We analyzed only the 328 completed questionnaires. Overall, the vast majority of respondents click here were
male (95%) and the age category most predominantly represented was between 46 and 60 years of age (63%). With regard to nationality, the vast majority came from Europe (83%). In addition, most respondents were residents of The Netherlands from where they started their trip (97%). Most respondents were experienced travelers; only 4% (13) were first-time travelers to a developing country. For the vast majority (86%), the business trip lasted between 3 and 28 days, and sub-Saharan Africa was the most common destination (57%), followed by Asia (39%), and Latin America (4%). Fifty-four percent of respondents had visited an area considered high-risk7 for malaria. The majority of FBT (71%) sought health Wortmannin mouse advice before their trip. The most common source for travel health advice was the company travel health service, either the travel clinic of the internal occupational health department (62%) or the company Intranet (21%) (Figure 1). All first-time travelers sought health advice. Although this group of first-time travelers was very small, they appear to be more likely to seek health advice than experienced travelers [Relative Risk (RR) = 1.4, 95% CI: 0.3–2.6]. Thirty-four percent of FBT sought travel advice 2 weeks prior to departure. The longer the duration of stay, the more likely health
advice was sought (p = 0.01, data not shown). Twenty-nine percent did not seek travel health advice and 39% of these travelers visited a high-risk area. Reasons for not seeking health advice were: 49% answered that they knew what to do, 8% were not aware that they should, 8% stated that there was no risk to their health, and the remaining 35% listed various reasons for not soliciting health advice from “a dislike of drugs” to “deliberate risk taking. In the questionnaire, respondents were asked to indicate the correct maximum incubation
period of falciparum malaria using a multiple choice question format with time intervals ranging from 1 week to more than 1 year. Knowledge of the correct maximum incubation period of malaria was poor, regardless of risk at destination Niclosamide (Table 2). Only 19% (n = 64) of all FBT estimated the incubation period correctly. Fifty-five percent wrongly estimated this period shorter than it actually was (data not shown). Fever, the most important symptom of malaria, was correctly identified by all FBT. Several other frequent symptoms (eg, chills, sweating, fatigue, and headaches) were correctly identified by most FBT (Figure 2). Gastrointestinal complaints (nausea and/or vomiting) were less consistently associated with the possibility of malaria. When comparing the perceived risk to the actual risk of malaria, 96% of FBT going to a high-risk area correctly identified their risk as high; no one was considered to be at no risk (Table 3).