Group Telehealth Behavioral Cough Suppression Therapy

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of behavioral cough suppression therapy (BCST) in managing refractory chronic cough (RCC) within a group telehealth setting. RCC is a cough that has lasted at least 8 weeks and has not resolved with standard medical treatment. BCST is a research-based treatment provided by specialty-trained speech-language pathologists (SLPs) for patients with RCC. Although the treatment works very well for a large proportion of patients in a standard one-on-one format, there are a limited number of SLPs available to provide this treatment and patients living in rural areas do not typically have access to an SLP trained in BCST. If BCST can effectively be delivered in a group telehealth model, it would significantly improve accessibility to the treatment.