Cough Presentation and Cough-Related Healthcare Utilization in Tertiary Care: Analysis of Routinely Collected Academic Institutional Database

Purpose: Routinely collected data (RCD) from electronic health records (EHR) are useful for studying disease epidemiology in the real world. We examined cough presentation and cough-related healthcare utilization using an academic institutional EHR database in Korea.

Methods: In this retrospective cohort study, patients with subacute (3-8 weeks) or chronic cough (> 8 weeks in duration) referred to allergy and asthma clinics were studied. Cases were identified using the search term "cough" or "coughing," which is the chief complaint, in the data fields. Structured data, including demographics, medical history, symptoms, and diagnostic tests, were analyzed. Healthcare utilization was assessed for drug prescriptions, additional tests, or outpatient visits for 1 year.

Results: Cough was the chief complaint in 13,223 cases (46.7%) among 28,312 new referrals for 8 years. A total of 3810 subacute and 7150 chronic cough patients were analyzed. The common demographic profile was middle-aged woman (mean age 52.1 years), reported in 63% of the cases. Cough was frequently accompanied by anterior nasal (about 50%), lower airway (30%), or acid reflux disease symptoms (20%), and by test abnormalities in chest X-rays (14%), spirometry (23%), or T2 inflammation markers (40%). Chronic cough patients frequently required additional tests (chest CT scan: 24%), drug prescriptions (codeine: 21.5% and oral steroids: 9.9%), and long-term healthcare utilization (16.0%) for 1 year.

Conclusions: Cough is a common chief complaint at allergy and asthma clinics, but the clinical presentation may be heterogeneous. Further studies are needed to understand long-term outcomes and reduce the disease burden.