Latent Tuberculosis Infection among a Large Cohort of Medical Students at a Teaching Hospital in Italy

Table 1

Demographic, epidemiological, and clinical characteristics of a cohort of medical students () trained at a regional tertiary adult acute care reference hospital in Italy.

Variables		%
Total number of participants in the study	1302	100
Mean age, year (SD)	22.4 (2.4)
Gender
Male	560	43.0
Female	742	57.0
Nationality
Italian	1226	94.2
Foreign	76	5.8
Born in a high TB incidence country^*
No	1281	98.4
Yes	21	1.6
Year of attendance
First	219	16.8
Second	287	22.0
Third	186	14.3
Fourth	262	20.1
Fifth	183	14.1
Sixth	165	12.7
Level of training
Preclinical	692	53.2
Clinical	610	46.8
BCG immunization
No	1255	96.4
Yes	47	3.6
Previous exposure to active TB case
No	1208	92.8
Household	13	1.0
Professional	63	4.8
Unknown	18	1.4
TST result
Negative	1291	99.2
Positive	11	0.8

SD: standard deviation.
TB: tuberculosis.
BCG: Bacille Calmette-Guérin.
TST: tuberculin skin testing.
High incidence: ≥20 cases per 100,000 population [12].