Table 2.

Comparisons between recurrent cough and isolated chronic cough

Characteristic	Recurrent cough (n = 222)	Isolated chronic cough (n = 265)	p-value
Age, years	71.93 (71.31–72.55)	72.82 (72.16–73.47)	0.135
Female gender, %	58.6	71.3	0.003
Body mass index, kg/m2	28.02 (27.40–28.64)	27.26 (26.74–27.77)	0.095
Current smoking, %	1.8	1.9	0.956
Ever-smoking, %	41.9	36.6	0.233
Trigger sum	3.7 (3.3–4.1)	3.3 (2.94–3.67)	0.212
Family history of chronic cough, %	42.3	34.7	0.085
Allergy, %	14.4	14.3	0.981
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, %	2.3	1.1	0.333
Bronchiectasis, %	1.4	1.5	0.884
Current asthma, %	18.0	13.3	0.148
Chronic rhinosinusitis, %	19.4	20.4	0.781
Gastro-esophageal reflux disease, %	27.7	27.1	0.878
Obstructive sleep apnoea, %	49.8	39.5	0.026
Chronic sputum production, %	46.4	39.4	0.123
Analgesic intolerance, %	11.9	7.7	0.122
Symptom sum	2.60 (2.32–2.88)	2.63 (2.41–2.85)	0.409
Disorder sum	1.89 (1.69–2.08)	1.69 (1.53–1.85)	0.187
Depressive symptoms, %	7.7	4.2	0.106
Mean number of cough-related doctor`s visits during the past year	0.58 (0.45–0.71)	0.36 (0.19–0.53)	0.007
Subjects with ≥ 3 cough-related doctor`s visits during the past year, %	6.0	3.8	0.272
Symptoms of acute upper respiratory infection at onset of current cough, %	33.7a	10.7	< 0.001
Cough bout frequency (median, range)	4–6 times per week (several times per day to ≤ 1 time per week)a	≥ 1 time per day (several times per day to ≤ 1 time per week)	0.847
LCQ total score	15.20 (14.64–15.76)a	16.27 (15.98–16.55)	0.001
LCQ, physical score	5.00 (4.83–5.18)a	5.37 (5.29–5.46)	< 0.001
LCQ, psychological score	4.95 (4.76–5.15)a	5.19 (5.07–5.30)	0.032
LCQ, social score	5.24 (5.01–5.48)a	5.70 (5.59–5.81)	< 0.001

p < 0.05 are highlighted in bold

The figures are presented as percentages or means and 95% confidence intervals unless stated otherwise

^a among subjects with current cough (n = 90)