Table 2.

Regression analysis of factors associated with faecal clearance and clinical cure after individual antiprotozoal treatment episodes.

Variables	Faecal clearance (n = 476)a		Clinical cure (n = 369)b
	OR (95% CI)	p-value	OR (95% CI)	p-value
Treatment		< 0.001		0.17
Metronidazole	2.49 (0.94–6.59)	0.07	0.62 (0.18–2.11)	0.45
Paromomycin	18.08 (7.24–45.16)	< 0.001	0.71 (0.23–2.24)	0.56
Secnidazole	1.95 (0.67–5.65)	0.22	0.26 (0.06–1.04)	0.06
Doxycycline	Ref	N/A	Ref	N/A
Successful faecal clearancec	N/A	N/A	5.84 (3.02–11.31)	< 0.001
Gender
Male	1.53 (0.95–2.45)	0.08	1.46 (0.88–2.41)	0.14
Age	1.00 (0.99–1.01)	0.96	0.97 (0.96–0.99)	< 0.001
Ethnic origin
Non-Finnish	0.93 (0.43–2.01)	0.86	1.05 (0.45–2.46)	0.91
Having pre-existing conditions	1.13 (0.67–1.73)	0.65	1.37 (0.79–2.40)	0.26
Gastrointestinal illnesses	0.86 (0.42–1.78)	0.69	0.77 (0.37–1.61)	0.50
Carriage of other parasites		0.52		0.84
Blastocystis	0.93 (0.58–1.50)	0.76	1.12 (0.67–1.87)	0.67
Other than Blastocystis	0.62 (0.27–1.41)	0.25	1.27 (0.50–3.20)	0.62
Foreign travel within 12 months	1.15 (0.72–1.83)	0.56	1.18 (0.70–1.97)	0.54
Symptoms prior to treatment	0.79 (0.43–1.43)	0.43	N/A	N/A

All treatment x other variable interactions were non-significant (p > 0.07) in clinical cure analysis. In clearance analysis age × treatment interaction had a p < 0.001 but was left out of our model for clinical insignificance; all treatment x other variable interactions were non-significant (p > 0.07).

^aFaecal clearance analysis is missing 13 paromomycin and 3 secnidazole episodes, as there were no data to show, whether the patients were symptomatic or not before medication.

^bAll patients were symptomatic prior to treatment.

^cSuccessful faecal clearance was defined by negative post-treatment samples.