Imagine this common scenario. A patient asks, “Do you have something to treat my chesty cough?”⁣⁣
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Can you straight away picture what type of cough they have? Or is it vague and you would want to ask more questions?⁣⁣
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When questioning patients about their cough, how many of us ask “is it chesty?” Do you think the patient automatically knows what you mean?⁣⁣
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References like the AMH (Australian Medicines Handbook) and APF (Australian Pharmaceutical Formulary and Handbook) don’t use the term chesty cough. In fact, not a lot of medical references use that term. Don’t believe me? Type “chesty cough” into PubMed and see what comes up.⁣⁣
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However (probably because of all the cough syrup marketing) “chesty cough” is a popular term. But what do your patients’ mean when they say it? If five patients say they have a chesty cough, you may get five different meanings to that term.⁣⁣
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From my experience when patients say they have a chesty cough, they nearly always mean the cough is “coming from the chest”. But they don’t always mean there’s mucus production.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣

Some patients also use the term to mean they are coughing up mucus. But when you ask more questions, you find out the mucus is just a postnasal drip.⁣⁣ ⁣

⁣When a patient uses the term chesty cough, you must clarify what they mean. Then you can give the appropriate treatment.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣

As a health professional, to minimize confusion, use the terms, productive (you may need to explain this as mucus-producing) and non-productive (or dry) cough.⁣⁣

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