Question

Question: Is honey a cough remedy? Does a teaspoon of honey before bed really calm a child’s cough? To test the folk remedy, pediatric researchers carried out a designed study conducted over two nights (Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, December 2007). A sample of 105 children who were ill with an upper respiratory tract infection and their parents participated in the study. On the first night, the parents rated their children’s cough symptoms on a scale from 0 (no problems at all) to 6 (extremely severe) in five different areas. The total symptoms score (ranging from 0 to 30 points) was the variable of interest for the 105 patients. On the second night, the parents were instructed to give their sick child a dosage of liquid “medicine” prior to bedtime. Unknown to the parents, some were given a dosage of dextromethorphan (DM)—an over-the-counter cough medicine—while others were given a similar dose of honey. Also, a third group of parents (the control group) gave their sick children no dosage at all. Again, the parents rated their children’s cough symptoms, and the improvement in total cough symptoms score was determined for each child. The data (improvement scores) for the study are shown in the table below, followed (in the next column) by a Minitab dot plot of the data. Notice that the green dots represent the children who received a dose of honey, the red dots represent those who got the DM dosage, and the black dots represent the children in the control group. What conclusions can pediatric researchers draw from the graph? Do you agree with the statement (extracted from the article), “Honey may be a preferable treatment for the cough and sleep difficulty associated with childhood upper respiratory tract infection”?

Short answer

“Honey dosage is the preferable treatment for the cough and sleep difficulty associated with childhood upper respiratory tract infection.

Step-by-step solution

Given information

From the given table, 35 children are in honey dosage, out of which 14 have an improvement score of 12 or higher.

Similarly, 33 children are in DM dosage, out of which 8 have an improvement score of 12 or higher, and 37 children are in no dosage, out of which 2 have an improvement score of 12 or higher.

Explanation

From the information, it is clear that using honey dosage is a good treatment when compared to other treatments, the children who consumed honey had better results in curing the respiratory infection.

Therefore, “Honey dosage is the preferable treatment for the cough and sleep difficulty associated with childhood upper respiratory tract infection.