Burden of cough in primary care

Study type

• Study type:
  Non-interventional study
• Scope of the study:
  Disease epidemiology

Non-interventional study

• Non-interventional study design:
  Cross-sectional

Study drug and medical condition

• Medical condition to be studied:
  Cough

Population studied

• Age groups:
  Adults (18 to < 46 years)

  Adults (46 to < 65 years)

  Adults (65 to < 75 years)

  Adults (75 to < 85 years)

  Adults (85 years and over)
• Estimated number of subjects:
  200000

Study design details

• Main study objective:
  This study aims to determine the epidemiological pattern and characteristics of cough in UK primary care, and prescribed treatments. Specifically:1) Prevalence and incidence of cough in UK primary care2) Demographic and clinical characteristics associated with cough in UK primary care3) Prescribed treatments for cough in UK primary care
• Outcomes:
  Burden of cough: Incidence, number of cough consultations and time to second cough consultation.Baseline characteristics across cough types and frequenciesCategorisation of cough types Seasonality of cough, Cause of coughHealthcare utilisation
• Data analysis plan:
  The number of patients/observations and percentage per category, mean plus standard deviation and median plus inter-quantile range will be given, as appropriate.Statistical testing will be used to explore the characteristics of those patients with different categories of cough, focusing on comparing those with idiopathic cough versus those were a cause of cough is determined. Statistical tests (e.g. F-tests, t-tests, chi-squared tests) and models (e.g. linear models) will be used, as appropriate.Statistically significant results will be defined as p<0.05.The analyses will be carried out using R (www.r-project.org).