Chest
Clinical InvestigationsEPIDEMIOLOGY AND DIAGNOSISMeasuring Persistent Cough in Children in Epidemiological Studies: Development of a Questionnaire and Assessment of Prevalence in Two Countries
Section snippets
Development of Questionnaire
The new questionnaire was a modification of one developed by the Institute of Respiratory Medicine at the University of Sydney that has been used widely in studies of children.13 New questions to measure the morbidity of cough were added using clinicians’ description of cough variant asthma. A focus group was formed consisting of clinicians (pediatricians and respiratory physicians), epidemiologists, and parents with children in the age group to be studied. Questions to best describe persistent
Results
To test the repeatability of the questionnaire, it was distributed to 199 children aged 9 to 12 years and returned completely filled by 165 children (response rate, 83%) at the first administration, and 109 children at the second administration 3 weeks later. Repeatability measures estimated from the duplicate 109 questionnaires as suggested by Chinn and Burney15 are shown in Table 1. A κ value above 0.4 indicates moderate agreement, above 0.6 indicates good agreement, and above 0.8 indicates
Repeatability and Validity
Using rigorous methods, a reliable questionnaire was developed and was used to measure the prevalence and morbidity of persistent cough in children in two communities. We used a previously validated questionnaire13,17 and added questions about the frequency of cough, sleep disturbance due to cough, triggers for cough, and use of medical services for cough. Although questionnaires are subject to bias in replies,14,18 they are the most practical method available for measuring the respiratory
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