Patient complaining of cough in primary care

Cough is one of the most common symptoms when seeking primary medical care.

Purpose. To increase the efficiency of diagnostic search for the cause of cough in the practice of a primary care doctor.

Materials and methods. A comparative analysis of 2 different approaches to the tactics of primary admission of patients who complained of cough was carried out (n=1800): group 1 is the traditional approach in the work of a primary care physician; group 2 is the application before admission of the "Diagnostic search algorithm in the examination of a patient with cough complaints", developed on the basis of the generated database.

Results. In the group 42,3% of patients were initially diagnosed with acute respiratory viral infection (ARVI), and 13,2% suspected pneumonia. Cough due to other causes was 44,5%. In the group 2, ARVI was diagnosed in 19% of cases, an exacerbation of COPD was detected in 11,8%, bronchial asthma in 8,9%, in 6,7% congestive heart failure, in 6,1% gastroesophageal reflux disease, in 2,1% focal pulmonary tuberculosis, in 23% pneumonia, in 6,7% COVID-19, in 15,7% chronic sinusitis.

Conclusion. The use of the algorithm in the practice of a general practitioner to identify the cause of cough can significantly facilitate the diagnostic search and reduce the number of unjustified consultations of specialist doctors. Also, this approach in the world of digitalization allows us to develop an intelligent service to support medical decision-making.