Familiarity of general practitioners with Q fever decreases hospitalisation risk.

Between 2007 and 2010, the Netherlands experienced large outbreaks of Q feverwith over 4000 cases. There were unexplained geographicaldifferences in hospitalisation rates of notified patients. We examined the extent of this geographicvariation in Q feverhospitalisation and its potential association with general practitioner (GP) experience with Q fever.