The interrelatedness of chronic cough and chronic pain

Since chronic cough has common neurobiological mechanisms and pathophysiology with chronic pain, both clinical disorders might be interrelated. Hence, we examined the association between chronic cough and chronic pain in adult subjects in the Rotterdam Study, a large prospective population-based cohort study.Using a standardised questionnaire, chronic pain was defined as pain lasting up to 6 months and grouped into a frequency of weekly/monthly or daily pain. Chronic cough was described as daily coughing for at least 3 months duration. The longitudinal and cross-sectional associations were investigated bi-directionally.Of 7141 subjects in the study, 54% (n=3888) reported chronic pain at baseline. The co-prevalence of daily chronic pain and chronic cough was 4.4%. Chronic cough was more prevalent in subjects with daily and weekly/monthly chronic pain compared with those without chronic pain (13.8% and 10.3% versus 8.2%; p