Study of Instruments for Assessment and Clinical Research Trends in Common Cold

감기 임상연구의 최신 동향 및 평가도구에 관한 연구

Objectives: This study was conducted to help clinical studies for treating the common cold with Oriental medicine. We inspected tendencies of clinical studies of the common cold in western medicine and analyzed the assessing instruments for it by scrutinizing PubMed publications for the last five years. Materials and Methods: We inspected 32 theses and scrutinized their objectives, periods, participants, materials and methods, the instrument of assessment for the studies, and validity, reliability, criteria and symptom score for questionnaires, results and JADAD score. Results: 1. The median for total period of study was 7 months, the median for days of treatment was 7.5, and most studies were carried out during the winter/spring period, because of the enhanced risk of cold infections. 2. The studies focused on unorthodox medicines or new drug products, such as antipyretic analgesics (e.g. paracetamol), decongestant and bronchodilator (e.g. ephedrine), echinacea, antioxidants (e.g. zinc), probiotic bacteria and so on. 3. All theses except one had subjectscomposed of cold patients who were infected naturally. The median number of subjects for final analysis was 187. 4. 27 studies used survey as the instrument of assessment. Among these, only one thesis was verified for validity. 5. The mean of JADAD score was 4.41, suggesting most of theses of worth. 7 studies were assessed as ineffective. Conclusion: Recent studies of the common cold are focused on unorthodox medicines or new drug products, and it is necessary to provide an objective instrument for assessing common cold treatments.