The strength of coughing may forecast the likelihood of spread of multi-drug resistant microorganisms from the respiratory tract of colonized patients

Table 1 Demographic data and clinical characteristics of the study population

	Cough plates- outcome (growth/no growth)		Total n = 128
Variables	growth	no growth	n (%)
Variables	(n = 23)	(n = 105)	n (%)
Gender
Male	14	52	66 (51.6)
Female	9	53	62 (48.4)
Age
Median (IQR)	66 (53-72) years
≤65 years	13	50	63 (49.2)
>65 years	10	55	65 (50.8)
Microorganism
MRSA	10	41	51 (39.8)
VRE	4	31	35 (27.3)
ESBL	9	33	42 (32.8)
Strength of cough
Strong	21	67	88 (68.8)
Weak	2	38	40 (31.3)