Table 1 Inclusion and exclusion criteria for article selection used in the systematic review, according to the PICOS Framework

Population

Community-based or unselected populations of China

1. Reports that focused only on specific sub-groups (e.g., soldiers and patients with occupational diseases)

2. Participants are from studies based on respiratory clinic or focused on a defined disease like bronchitis, COVID-19, influenza virus, mycoplasma pneumoniae infection etc

3. Studies using duplicated samples

Intervention and comparator

Any

Not applicable

Outcome

Studies reporting the prevalence of chronic cough, or data that can be converted into prevalence, such as calculate the prevalence according to the formulation of [ (number of female chronic cough patients + number of male chronic cough patients) / (number of female participants + male participants)] *100%. Studies with chronic cough or other conceptually equivalent terms, such as prolonged cough or persistent cough

1. Studies published neither in English nor Chinese

2. Full text not accessible

3. Studies reported the proportion of chronic cough based on population for medical care

Study design

Observational study, such as cohort study and cross-sectional study

Case reports, case series, comments, conference papers, technical reports, popular science literature, and animal experiments