Survey on attitudes of Italian pediatricians toward cough

Knowledge, attitude, and practice of healthcare providers on chronic refractory cough: A cross-sectional study

Objective

Previous studies from outside China showed that the knowledge, attitudes, and practice (KAP) of chronic refractory cough (CRC) was moderate among physicians. This study examined the KAP toward CRC in Chinese healthcare providers.

Methods

This single-center cross-sectional study was conducted at The Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Yancheng Third People's Hospital, from July 2022 to January 2023 and enrolled healthcare providers. The demographic characteristics and KAP scores were collected using a questionnaire (Cronbach's α = 0.934) developed based on CRC guidelines.

Results

The study included 539 healthcare providers. The mean knowledge score was 8.27 ± 2.37 (maximum of 14, 59.07%), indicating poor knowledge. The highest rates of inaccuracies pertained to knowledge about the definition of chronic cough, empirical treatment methods, and potential risks of different treatments, suggesting a need for unified training in all aspects of CRC for medical staff. The mean attitude score was 49.74 ± 63.63 (maximum of 60, 82.90%), indicating favorable attitudes. Most healthcare providers believed that CRC affects normal work and life and that it would be necessary to provide more help to patients from the perspectives of drug treatment and psychological counseling. The mean practice score was 23.20 ± 6.28 (maximum of 35, 66.29%), indicating poor practice.

Conclusion

This study suggests that healthcare providers in Yancheng have poor knowledge, favorable attitudes, and poor practice of CRC. This study provides points that should be targeted in future training and continuing education activities.

Efficacy and safety of the syrup "KalobaTUSS®" as a treatment for cough in children: a randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial

Background

Acute cough in children often causes discomfort to children and parents, reducing their quality of life. Despite the extensive utilization of over-the-counter remedies for cough, the efficacy of most of these treatments in children has not been confirmed.

Methods

We conducted a randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial of 106 children with acute cough to evaluate the efficacy and safety of KalobaTUSS®, a paediatric cough syrup based on acacia honey and on Malva sylvestris extract, Inula helenium extract, Plantago major extract, and Helichrysum stoechas extract by using a validated 6 points Likert scale.

Results

Children were orally treated with KalobaTUSS® or placebo for 8 days. Children receiving KalobaTUSS® showed an early and significant reduction in night-time and day-time cough scores measured using a specific scale and a shorter duration of cough than children treated with the placebo.

Conclusions

KalobaTUSS® is well tolerated and produces positive effects by reducing the severity and shortening the duration of cough in children.

Trial registration

Clinicaltrials.gov no. NCT04073251. Retrospectively registered.

XII AIST 2018 Conference: “The thousand faces of cough: clinical and therapeutic updates”

This paper summarizes the presentations submitted for publication of the 12^th AIST National Congress (Associazione Italiana Studio Tosse/Italian Association for Cough Study) entitled “The thousand facets of cough. A clinical and therapeutic update”, which occurred last February 2^nd-3^rd, 2018 in Bologna (Italy). It summarizes the contributions from leading experts of the sector, who, as in the previous editions, also this year have analyzed a problem too often underestimated which still has many dark sides as regards both the diagnosis and the therapy of cough. The Scientific Committee has chosen topics that had less space in previous editions and these are topical subjects representing a concrete opportunity for learning and comparison of opinions, as well as indispensable elements for the correct management of the symptoms.

Hereby we report the abstracts of the works submitted for publication in this Meeting report.

The main topics have covered Cough relationship with nerve vagus, ATP, air pollution, GERD, imaging, COPD, pediatric and therapy. Of particular interest it is the preliminary data on cough hydration ratio that shows a highly significant correlation between dehydration and cough.