Abstract
Dengue is a communicable disease transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes causing a significant problem in the tropical zone and humid regions of the world, including Thailand. The signs and symptoms of dengue are similar to other diseases making diagnosis more complicate. Dengue virus infection test kit (DENV NS1) is crucial for virus detection and diagnosis. This cross-sectional study aimed to study the use of DENV NS1 test kit among reported cases according to the diseases surveillance system (Report 506) in Bangkok between 2013 and 2017. The sample group of this study was 33 of hospitals in Bangkok. The data were collected in March 2019 by self-administered questionnaire and analyzed by descriptive statistics and Chi-square test. The result showed that the trend of using DENV NS1 test kit was increased following the disease situation. The highest positive results of DENV NS1 were 30.1 percent, concurrent with the number of 11,881 reported dengue cases in 2015. Furthermore, the reported cases in the diseases surveillance system (R. 506) was less than the positive result from the test kit (87.8%) and the number of using dengue rapid test kit increased every year. The use of 1 to 2-days screening test kit constantly increased from 2014 to 2017. The uses of DENV NS1 test kit results were associated with the types of dengue reported in the disease surveillance system (p < 0.001). It is recommended that the hospital should develop a surveillance system to report patients to fill out the results of using the test kit or laboratory result.
