Cough severity represents an important subjective endpoint in assessing the effectiveness of therapies for patients with chronic cough. Although cough-specific quality of life questionnaires exist, a widely available cough severity instrument with established measurement properties remains unavailable.

To identify and summarise the results of studies reporting on the experience of patients with chronic cough and, in the process, develop a conceptual framework to inform development of a patient-reported outcome measurement (PROM) addressing cough severity.

We identified 61 eligible studies reporting on patient experience with chronic cough. Studies provided 82 potential items, of which 43 proved unique and relevant to cough severity. The urge-to-cough sensation and the cough symptom itself represented broad domains of cough severity. Two subdomains under urge-to-cough included frequency (1 item) and intensity (1 item). Five subdomains under cough symptoms included control (2 items), frequency (6 items), bout duration (1 item), intensity (8 items), and associated features/sequelae (24 items).

Our systematic survey and conceptual framework identified items and domains of cough severity in patients with refractory or unexplained chronic cough. The results support item generation and content validity for a PROM assessing cough severity.

咳嗽严重程度是评估慢性咳嗽患者治疗效果的一个重要主观终点。尽管存在针对咳嗽的生活质量问卷，但仍无法获得广泛使用的具有既定测量特性的咳嗽严重程度仪器。

识别和总结慢性咳嗽患者经历的研究报告结果，并在此过程中制定概念框架，为制定解决咳嗽严重程度的患者报告结果测量 (PROM) 提供信息。

我们确定了 61 项符合条件的研究，报告了慢性咳嗽患者的经历。研究提供了 82 个潜在项目，其中 43 个被证明是独特的且与咳嗽严重程度相关。咳嗽的冲动和咳嗽症状本身代表了咳嗽严重程度的广泛范围。咳嗽冲动下的两个子域包括频率（1 项）和强度（1 项）。咳嗽症状下的五个子域包括控制（2 项）、频率（6 项）、发作持续时间（1 项）、强度（8 项）和相关特征/后遗症（24 项）。

我们的系统调查和概念框架确定了难治性或不明原因慢性咳嗽患者咳嗽严重程度的项目和领域。结果支持 PROM 评估咳嗽严重程度的项目生成和内容有效性。