The description of cough sounds by healthcare professionals.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Little is known of the language healthcare professionals use to describe cough sounds. We aimed to examine how they describe cough sounds and to assess whether these descriptions suggested they appreciate the basic sound qualities (as assessed by acoustic analysis) and the underlying diagnosis of the patient coughing.

Methods

53 health professionals from two large respiratory tertiary referral centres were recruited; 22 doctors and 31 staff from professions allied to medicine. Participants listened to 9 sequences of spontaneous cough sounds from common respiratory diseases. For each cough they selected patient gender, the most appropriate descriptors and a diagnosis. Cluster analysis was performed to assess which cough sounds attracted similar descriptions.

Res

SUBMITTER: Smith JA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1413549 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature