Chronic Cough In Children Adds To Parental Stress

Main Category: Respiratory / Asthma
Also Included In: Pediatrics / Children's Health;  Psychology / Psychiatry;  Ear, Nose and Throat
Article Date: 06 Aug 2008 - 3:00 PDT

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Parents of children with chronic cough may suffer from additional stress and worry beyond the normal stress of parenting.

In a new study, Australian researchers administered questionnaires measuring anxiety, depression, stress, and burden of cough to 79 parents of 190 children who were newly referred for chronic cough. More than 80 percent of children had five or more doctor visits, and 53 percent had more than 10 visits. Although parental anxiety and depression scores revealed normal results, burden of cough scores correlated to parental depression, anxiety, and stress scores while a child was coughing.

At follow-up, the reduction in parental burden scores was significantly higher in the "ceased coughing" group compared with the "still coughing" group. Furthermore, stress was the largest contributor to parents' emotional distress.

This study is published in the August issue of the journal CHEST.

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