Evaluation of chronic cough etiology, quality of life, and anxiety level in children.

Abstract

Introduction: To evaluate the quality of life and anxiety level of school-age children with chronic cough, and changes with treatment.

Materials and methods: Patients aged between 6-18 years with a chronic cough were included in this study. A control group was designed, and the scale scores were compared with each other.

Result: The mean age of the 82 patients was 10.9 ± 3.8 years, 62 (75.6%) had at least one specific cough marker. Forty patients (48.8%) were diagnosed with asthma. At their first visit, the psychosocial health scores and the total scale scores (sum of physical and psychosocial total scores) were lower than the control group for both patients and parents. After the resolution of cough, their scores increased to the same level with the control group. It was also found that the level of anxiety was significantly higher than in the control group both before treatment and after the resolution period (p<0.001 and =0.008, respectively).

Conclusions: Asthma was the leading cause of chronic cough. Quality of life is impaired in children with chronic cough. Anxiety level in these patients increases and after symptoms improve, continues to be higher than that of healthy children.