Evaluation of anamnestic criteria for the identification of patients with acute community onset viral gastroenteritis in the emergency department--A prospective observational study.

Background: To our knowledge no clinical criteria for the identification of community onset viral gastroenteritis in individual patients have been evaluated systematically with modern PCR-based diagnostic assays as gold standard.

Objective: The aim of this study was to identify factors independently associated with the detection of virus by PCR in rectal swab samples from patients with acute community onset gastroenteritis.

Methods: A prospective observational study was conducted from December 2010 through March 2011 at the emergency department (ED) of a large teaching hospital.