Cough quality in children: a comparison of subjective vs. bronchoscopic findings

Respiratory Research

Table 2 Assessment of cough quality vs bronchoscopic findings with BS cut off at grade 4*

Assessment type (clinical vs bronchoscopic findings)	Sensitivity	Specificity	NPV	PPV	Positive LR
Clinician	0.79	0.75	0.82	0.72	3.22
Cough quality (wet or dry)
assessed by clinician (n = 96)
Parent(s)	0.78	0.71	0.80	0.67	2.69
Cough quality (wet or dry)
assessed by parents (n = 92)
Combined* (n = 100)	0.77	0.73	0.80	0.69	2.88

*Cough quality (wet/dry) assessed by clinicians combined with parents. When cough was non-assessable by clinician and child has current cough, parental assessment of the cough (wet or dry) was taken. If child has no history of current cough, cough was assigned 'dry'.
LR = likelihood ratio.
Specificity, sensitivity of dry and wet cough was assessed against bronchoscopic findings as the gold standard where BS grades ≥ 4 were considered abnormal (secretions present) and ≤ 3 considered normal (no secretions).

ISSN: 1465-993X