Chronic cough in children

The physician faced with a child with a chronic and relatively non-specific symptom.
 While we are assessing the etiology of cough first needs to decide into which of five categories to place the child:
1. Normal child (the diagnosis which requires the most skill and experience).
2. A child with a serious illness such as cystic fibrosis,
tuberculosis etc. (rare, but essential to get right).
3. A child with non-serious, but treatable causes of cough and wheeze, for example gastrooesophageal
reflux or postnasal drip.
4. A child with an asthma syndrome.
5. Overestimation of symptoms for psychological or other reasons by either or both of child or family.
Initial assessment is with a careful history and physical examination. It should be noted that the
likelihood of a child having a serious condition depends on the setting; in a community context,
isolated cough rarely betokens anything serious, but in a tertiary level hospital, selection ensures
that many more coughers have a serious underlying cause.

for more detail see the attached review