Objectives. Information on the emotional impact of chronic cough is scarce. In patients with refractory or unexplained chronic cough (RCC/UCC), we explored emotions triggered by bouts of cough with the Discrete Emotions Questionnaire (DEQ).

Methods. Adult patients with RCC/UCC from hospital outpatient clinics in Spain completed a survey that included the DEQ, a validated tool that, through 32 items responded with a Likert-scale with 7 options (from ?Not at all? to ?An extreme amount?), measures the basic emotions of anger, disgust, fear, sadness, happiness, plus anxiety, desire, and relaxation, providing a score from 1 to 7 for each (higher score, more intense emotion). Patients assigned scores based on the question: ?When suffering bouts of cough, to what extent do you experience these emotions??

Results. The DEQ was completed by 190 patients (RCC=120, UCC=70; 148 women, 42 men, mean age 59 years). Anger was the emotion with highest score (3.6, indicating it was experienced to a greater extent during bouts of cough), followed by anxiety (3.3), disgust (2.6), fear (2.6), sadness (2.5), desire (1.8), relaxation (1.6) and happiness (1.3). Scores did not differ between RCC and UCC patients. Women scored slightly but non-significantly higher in anger, anxiety, disgust, fear and sadness, and lower in relaxation and happiness than men.

Conclusions: Patients with RCC/UCC associate bouts of cough with various negative emotions. There was a trend towards more impact in women.Funded by MSD Spain