A scoring system on respiratory symptoms.

A method for quantitative recording of psychiatric symptoms has been modified for application to respiratory symptoms such as cough, attacks of breathlessness, wheezing and dyspnoea. The method was evaluated in a survey of 193 subjects without pulmonary disorders and 186 patients with pulmonary disorders. The average time taken to obtain scores for four symptoms was six minutes. Inconsistencies were few when the subjects selected statements about symptoms. Cough score discriminated between groups of healthy persons with various smoking habits. Wheezing score distinguished healthy persons from patients with obstructive lung disease more accurately than cough, attacks of breathlessness and dyspnoea score. Regression analyses showed that per score point of dyspnoea and cough the peak expiratory flow rate decreased by almost 12 and 7% of predicted, respectively.