Duration, course and caregiver burden of croup in children: two observational cohorts
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: Although croup is a common respiratory illness, there is little published regarding symptom course. We aimed to assess symptom progression and caregiver burden, and whether age, sex or season and initial severity of disease are associated with symptom duration.
DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: We conducted a secondary analysis of two Canadian prospective cohorts of children 0-16 years old diagnosed with croup; one recruited from a paediatric emergency department (ED) (307 children) between November 1999 and March 2000, and the other from 26 general EDs (1214 children) between September 2002 and April 2006. Baseline data included age, sex, season, corticosteroid treatment and clinical severity score based on the presence or absence of a barky cough, stridor at rest or with agitation and chest wall indrawing (mild, moderate or severe). For both cohorts, the child's primary caregiver was telephoned daily to collect symptom progression and psychosocial data (caregiver stress, lost sleep and work) until the child was symptom-free for over 24 hours.
RESULTS: The paediatric and general ED cohorts are reported separately; croup symptoms peaked at initial ED presentation for 96% and 77%, respectively. The longest-lived symptom was a barky cough, resolving by 34 and 47 hours for 50%, and 78 and 119 hours for 90% of children, respectively. Neither sex nor severity at presentation were significantly associated with symptom duration in either cohort. Season of illness was…
How strong is the evidence?
Evidence Hub reads this as a cohort study, done in people. Its evidence level is 3 of 5 (Moderate · trial / cohort / secondary analysis). Trials without a large randomized design, cohorts and secondary analyses give moderate evidence. Reported size: 1,214 participants or records.
Read the paper
Related studies
- The Matrisome: In Silico Definition and In Vivo Characterization by Proteomics of Normal and Tumor Extracellular Matrices
- The Escherichia coli MG1655 in silico metabolic genotype: Its definition, characteristics, and capabilities
- In silico pharmacology for drug discovery: methods for virtual ligand screening and profiling
- In silico prediction of splice-altering single nucleotide variants in the human genome
- In silico clinical trials: how computer simulation will transform the biomedical industry
- In silico optimization of a guava antimicrobial peptide enables combinatorial exploration for peptide design
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.