Determination of effective risk factors in household transmission of COVID-19

The COVİD-19 (Coranavirus Disease) epidemic, which started with pneumonia cases of unknown etiology in Wuhan, Hubei Province in December 2019, affected the whole world in a short time. The transmission properties of SARS-Cov-2, which is the COVİD-19 agent, are not known adequately. Knowing the properties of the transmission will guide the measures to be taken to prevent the spread of the disease. Household studies gain importance in determining the properties of transmission, with features such as the convenience of identifying the contacts of the cases and the ease of monitoring the case contacts. For this reason, in this cross-sectional study, it is aimed to determine the factors that cause the transmission of COVİD-19 in the household, to calculate the secondary attack rate in the household, to determine the factors that increase the sensitivity of the contacts and increase the contagiousness of the primary case. In this study, 701 households with positive COVİD-19 test cases between 24-31 August 2020 in Afyonkarahisar and 1813 adults living in these households were included. All participants were interviewed by phone. A questionnaire form consisting of 45 questions prepared by the researchers was applied. Descriptive statistics, chi-square test and multivariate logistic regression analysis were performed. Secondary attack rate was 31.5% in the study. Factors that increased the infectivity of the first case were being male, having an education level of more than 8 years, living in a province or district, low number of people living in the household, severe COVID-19, non-compliance with isolation precaution and nonadherence to face mask use. The factors that increase the sensitivity of the household were determined as being a woman, having an education level of more than 8 years, obesity, not smoking, and sleeping in the same room with the case of COVİD-19. Diagnosing the cases is important for taking control measures. For this reason, it is thought that diagnosing COVİD-19 patients as early as possible and taking isolation measures will have a key role in reducing the spread of the disease within the household.