Psychogenic cough in a school-aged child in the primary care physician’s office – diagnostics and treatment

Chronic cough is one of the most common symptoms reported by children. Family physicians usually focus on tangible causes, giving the possibility of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures with an adapted algorithm. However, the diagnosis of cough is not always simple, as it turns out, it can sometimes have a psychogenic background. The definition of chronic psychogenic cough is a type of chronic cough, resistant to treatment, without a tangible somatic etiology. In the article below, we would like to present the case of a 10-year-old boy who was admitted to the office of a child and adolescent psychiatrist after exhausting the paths of somatic diagnostics by a primary care physician. The patient’s cough appeared in situations of high stress as well as when his parents failed to meet his expectations. We outline below the structure of the family system and the boy’s personality for a deeper analysis of the problem. We also present the procedure in the case of establishing the psychogenic etiology of the disorder.