Evaluation of a new self-contained, ambulatory, objective cough monitor.
OBJECTIVE
Objective monitoring of cough may be preferred to subjective reporting of the symptom in clinical and research settings. Therefore, a self-contained, ambulatory cough monitoring system is needed that is non-invasive, usable for children and adults of all ages, inexpensive, and highly accurate with easy to use analysis software.


METHODS
After development of a new device, 15 subjects with frequent coughing were recorded with the novel cough monitor and a simultaneous video recording in order to validate the monitor compared with a gold standard. Two investigators independently analyzed the recordings and counted the number of coughs during the study period from both the cough monitor and the video recording.


RESULTS
When measuring agreement between the two investigators, the sample concordance correlation coefficient for audio counts was 0.998 (p < 0.001). In the comparison of video counts, the sample concordance correlation coefficient was 0.997 (p < 0.001). For the comparison of investigator 1's video counts to the corresponding audio counts, the sample concordance correlation coefficient was 0.968 (p = 0.026). For the comparison of investigator 2's video counts to the corresponding counts, the sample concordance correlation coefficient was 0.973 (p = 0.015).


CONCLUSIONS
We have developed and piloted a new, valid, and reproducible method of objectively recording and analyzing cough. This device appears to be useful for subjects of any age and in clinical and research settings.
Paul
Ian M
IM
Department of Pediatrics, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, PA, USA. ipaul@psu.edu
Wai
Kitman
K
Jewell
Steven J
SJ
Shaffer
Michele L
ML
Varadan
Vasundara V
VV