Acute cough in Italian children: parents' beliefs, approach to treatment, and the family impact

High Incidence of Respiratory Syncytial Virus in Children with Community-Acquired Pneumonia from a City in the Brazilian Pre-Amazon Region

INTRODUCTION

Although fewer children have been affected by the severe form of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) continues to be the leading global cause of child hospitalizations and deaths.

AIM

This study investigated the incidence of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) as well its subtypes (RSV A and B), adenovirus (ADV), rhinovirus (HRV), metapneumovirus (HMPV), coronavirus (NL63, OC43, 229E and HKU1), parainfluenza virus subtypes (PI1, PI2 and PI3), bocavirus and influenza A and B viruses (FluA and FluB) in children diagnosed with CAP during the COVID-19 pandemic.

METHODS

A total of 200 children with clinically confirmed CAP were initially recruited, of whom 107 had negative qPCR results for SARS-CoV-2 and were included in this study. Viral subtypes were identified using a real-time polymerase chain reaction in the nasopharyngeal swab samples.

RESULTS

Viruses were identified in 69.2% of the patients. RSV infections were the most frequently identified (65.4%), with type RSV B being the most prevalent (63.5%). In addition, HCoV 229E and HRV were detected in 6.5% and 3.7% of the patients, respectively. RSV type B was associated with severe acute respiratory infection (ARI) and a younger age (less than 24 months).

CONCLUSIONS

New strategies for preventing and treating viral respiratory infections, particularly RSV infections, are necessary.

Medication and healthcare use, parent knowledge and cough in children: A cohort study

INTRODUCTION

Cough is an important contributor to the health burden of children and their families. There are limited data describing healthcare utilization and medication use over the course of a cough illness beyond the initial presentation. Our primary objective was to describe medication and healthcare use in children with a respiratory illness with cough as a symptom over the course of the illness.

METHODS

A cohort study of children aged less than 15-years presenting to three primary healthcare centers and three emergency departments with a cough illness between July 7, 2015 and October 6, 2018. Children with immunosuppression, known chronic lung diseases (except asthma) and those requiring hospitalization at screening were excluded. The primary outcomes were cough-related frequency and type of healthcare seeking and medication use up to 28 days following enrolment.

RESULTS

Data for 465 children were analyzed; median age 2.2-years (interquartile range = 1.1-5.3). Cough at Day 28 persisted in 117 children (25.2%). Overall, 436 (94%) children received medications in the week before and/or 4 weeks following enrolment. Half with upper respiratory tract infections were prescribed antibiotics. Among children with no diagnosis of asthma, reactive airways disease or croup (n = 404), 16.8% were given steroids. Fifty-eight percent of children sought healthcare at least once before their baseline presentation (median = 1, range = 0-20) and 49.7% had at least one further presentation in the following 28 days.

CONCLUSIONS

High healthcare utilization, inappropriate medication use, and suboptimal parent knowledge regarding cough suggests targeted education is needed to improve management and reduce cough burden.

Physical Disorders are Associated with Health Risk Behaviors in Chinese Adolescents: A Latent Class Analysis

It is known that health risk behaviors (HRBs) can lead to a variety of physical and mental health problems among adolescents, but few studies have paid attention to the relationship between latent classes of HRBs and adolescent diseases. The purpose of this study was to use latent class analysis (LCA) to clarify the potential subgroups of HRBs (smoking, drinking, screen time, non-suicidal self-injuries, suicidal behaviors, and unintentional injuries) and examine the association between the subgroups of HRBs and physical disorders (diarrhea, fever, cough, and vomiting) with multiple logistic regression analysis, in Chinese adolescents. Self-reported HRBs and physical disorders were used to evaluate 22,628 middle school students in six cities of China, from November 2015 to January 2016, based on a multistage stratified cluster sampling approach. The prevalence of diarrhea, fever, cough, and vomiting was 23.5%, 15.9%, 50.6%, and 10.7%, respectively. We identified four latent classes of HRBs by LCA, including low-risk class, moderate-risk class 1 (smoking, drinking, and screen time), moderate-risk class 2 (non-suicidal self-injuries and suicidal behaviors, unintentional injuries), and high-risk class (smoking, drinking, screen time, non-suicidal self-injuries, suicidal behaviors, and unintentional injuries), which were 64.0%, 4.5%, 28.8% and 2.7% of participants, respectively. Compared to the low-risk class, all other classes showed higher risk for these physical disorders (P < 0.01 for each). In particular, the high-risk class had the highest risk (diarrhea (odds ratio (OR) = 2.628, 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.219 to 3.113), fever (OR = 3.103, 95% CI 2.591 to 3.717), cough (OR = 2.142, 95% CI 1.805 to 2.541), and vomiting (OR = 3.738, 95% CI 3.081 to 4.536). In conclusion, these results indicated that heterogeneity exists in HRBs, and subgroups of HRBs were correlated to the occurrence of common physical disorders in Chinese adolescents. Therefore, multiple HRBs rather than single factors should be considered for the prevention of common physical disorders in schools.