Impact of Cough Across Different Chronic Respiratory Diseases: Comparison of Two Cough-Specific Health-Related Quality of Life Questionnaires

Background Cough is a prominent symptom across a range of common chronic respiratory diseases and impacts considerably on patient health status. Methods We undertook a cross-sectional comparison of scores from two cough-specific health-related quality of life (HRQoL) questionnaires, the Leicester Cough Questionnaire (LCQ), and the Cough Quality of Life Questionnaire (CQLQ), together with a generic HRQoL measure, the EuroQol. Questionnaires were administered to and spirometry performed on 147 outpatients with chronic cough (n = 83), COPD (n = 18), asthma (n = 20), and bronchiectasis (n = 26). Results There was no significant difference in the LCQ and CQLQ total scores between groups (p = 0.24 and p=0.26, respectively). Exploratory analyses of questionnaire subdomains revealed differences in psychosocial issues and functional impairment between the four groups (p = 0.01 and p=0.05, respectively). CQLQ scores indicated that chronic coughers have more psychosocial issues than patients with bronchiectasis (p = 0.03) but less functional impairment than COPD patients (p = 0.04). There was a significant difference in generic health status across the four disease groups (p = 0.04), with poorest health status in COPD patients. A significant inverse correlation was observed between CQLQ and LCQ in each disease group (chronic cough r = − 0.56, p r = − 0.49, p=0.04; asthma r = − 0.94, p r = − 0.88, p 1 in any group, although a significant correlation between EuroQol visual analog scale component and FEV 1 ( r = 0.639, p=0.004) was observed in COPD patients. Conclusion Cough adversely affects health status across a range of common respiratory diseases. The LCQ and CQLQ can each provide important additional information concerning the impact of cough.