Organizational measures for early detection of pharyngeal mycosis using questionnaires

Objective. Analysis of organizational measures for early detection of pharyngeal mycosis in patients with respiratory diseases by validating original questionnaires. Materials and methods . In a prospective study for early detection of pharyngeal mycosis in patients with respiratory diseases, 127 children (2-17 years old) participated in the pulmonology department of the “Gomel Regional Clinical Hospital” from October to December 2018. Questionnaires using original tools were completed by the children’s legal representatives. The diagnosis of pharyngeal mycosis was verified comprehensively: clinical examination (pharyngoscopy), microscopy (KOH, Gram), mycological culture (titer ≥10⁴ CFU/ml). An analysis of organizational measures for early detection of pharyngeal mycosis in patients with respiratory diseases was performed by validating the authors’ questionnaires. Statistical analysis was performed in R environment (version 4.5.0) using packages: rstatix (statistical testing), ggstatsplot and ggplot2 (visualization), pROC (ROC analysis), and dplyr (data manipulation). Results. The validated express questionnaire for patients with pharyngeal mycosis (EQPM) associated with respiratory diseases (≥6 points: PPV=81%, NPV=77,4%, AUC=0.684, point-biserial correlation r=0.816, p<0.001), and the questionnaire for anxiety in pharyngeal mycosis (QAPM) (98% vs 8% of disorders with/without pharyngeal mycosis, AUC=0.982, point-biserial correlation r=0.963, p<0.001) revealed a strong association of pharyngeal mycosis with somatic symptoms and psychosomatic disorders, justifying their use for early detection of pharyngeal mycosis and the need for an interdisciplinary approach. Conclusion. Implementation of the EQPM and QAPM into clinical practice allows optimizing the early diagnosis of pharyngeal mycosis in patients with respiratory diseases, timely initiate etiotropic therapy, assess concomitant psychosomatic symptoms, and personalize treatment improving control of the basic disease and patients’ quality of life.