Prevalence and Burden of Chronic Cough in France

Abstract

Chronic cough is a common condition that is associated with lower health-related quality of life and greater health care resource use. There are limited data on the prevalence, population characteristics, and burden of chronic cough in France.This was a cross-sectional study based on responses from French adult residents to the 2020 National Health and Wellness Survey. Respondents with chronic cough were compared to 1:3 propensity score-matched controls without chronic cough.The weighted lifetime and 12-month prevalence of chronic cough were estimated as 7.5% and 4.8%, respectively. Respondents with chronic cough reported significantly worse perceived health than did matched controls, with lower mean (sd) scores of 46.68 (9.28)versus50.42 (8.26) on the physical health component and 40.32 (9.87)versus44.32 (9.69) on the mental health component of the SF-12v2 survey (p<0.001 for both comparisons). Respondents with chronic cough also had higher rates of moderate-to-severe forms of anxiety (24.4%versus12.4%) and depression (36.4%versus20.2%); higher rates of multiple forms of sleep disturbance; greater impairment of work productivity (38.2%versus25.5%) and other activities (41.8%versus28.2%;p<0.001 for all comparisons). Respondents with chronic cough also had higher rates of all-cause health care resource use including ER visits, hospitalisation, overall and specialist health care provider visits compared to controls (p<0.001 for all comparisons).Chronic cough is a common condition in France that is associated with lower health-related quality of life and greater health care resource utilisation.