From the BMJ, we have a very interesting systematic review evaluating the duration of symptoms in children seen in the ED (or A&E, if you will) for fairly minor complaints: otitis media, acute cough, sore throat, and common cold. In my time in the pediatric ED, I’ve noticed that a not-insignificant number of visits are repeat visits for persistent symptoms in well-appearing children who were seen and discharged from the ED within the last week or so. The parents are often concerned that the cough has still not gone away, or that the child’s breathing at night still sounds funny to them — these are not different symptoms than the child was originally evaluated for, but I thought it was possible that better anticipatory guidance in terms of the duration of symptoms parents could expect might result in fewer of these “bounce
backs”.
So what did the authors at BMJ find? In 90% of children, earache was resolved by seven to eight days, sore throat between two and seven days, croup by two days, bronchiolitis by 21 days, acute cough by 25 days, common cold by 15 days, and non-specific respiratory tract infections symptoms by 16 days.
21 days of cough for bronchiolitis and 25 days for non-bronchiolitis URIs? That is way longer than what I hear when parents are being discharged — I am no less guilty of underselling the duration of symptoms than others. It’s a tough question to answer, right? “How much longer will this last?” — Prognostication is always the hardest part of medicine, whether you’re talking to the dying cancer patient or to the parents of the child with the perpetually stuffy nose and inflamed upper airways. Well, I personally intend to try to provide parents with a more evidence-based answer for the rest of this season– something along these lines: “Longer than you can possibly imagine. Most kids will have a cough for three weeks or more, and many will seem like they go the entire winter without getting better. But as long as they’re eating, drinking, pooping, peeing, moving about and more or less acting like a slightly-more-congested-and-therefore-irritable version of themselves, that’s okay!”
It’s a tough balance. You wouldn’t want to dissuade parents from seeking medical attention (ideally from their PMD) if the child doesn’t get better in a reasonable amount of time, but it’s very difficult knowing what that time is for them. Moral of the story: encourage that follow up visit with the PMD, and make sure to give thorough and explicit return precautions accounting for the myriad reasons we *do* need to see these patients back ASAP.