Elsevier

Respiratory Medicine

Volume 100, Issue 6, June 2006, Pages 1105-1109
Respiratory Medicine

Cough frequency, cough sensitivity and health status in patients with chronic cough

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rmed.2005.09.023Get rights and content
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Summary

Background

Little is known about the frequency of cough in health and in patients with chronic cough.

Methods

We measured cough frequency and its relationship with other markers of cough severity in 20 patients with chronic cough and 9 healthy subjects using the Leicester Cough Monitor (LCM), which is an automated ambulatory digital cough monitor that records sound only. All subjects had a 6-h recording and recordings were manually counted. A subgroup of 6 normals and 6 patients with a stable chronic cough had repeat measurements up to 6 months apart.

Results

Mean (sem) cough counts/hour were 43(8) in patients with chronic cough and 2(1) in normals (mean difference 41; 95% confidence interval 24–59; P<0.001). The cough counts were repeatable (within subject standard deviation: 23 coughs/hour; intraclass correlation coefficient 0.8). Cough counts correlated significantly with physical (r=-0.6, P=0.03), social (r=-0.7, P=0.01) and total Leicester Cough Questionnaire (LCQ) health status scores (r=-0.6, P=0.03) and cough sensitivity (concentration of capsaicin causing 5 coughs: r=0.9, P=0.008).

Conclusion

We have shown that there are marked differences in cough frequency between patients with chronic cough and healthy subjects, that these measurements are repeatable, and that they correlate with cough-specific health status.

Keywords

Chronic cough
Cough monitor
Cough counts
Cough sensitivity
Quality of life
Health status

Cited by (0)

This study was funded by University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust. Surinder Birring is a British Lung Foundation Clinical Research Fellow.