Determinants of elevated healthcare utilization in patients with COPD

Respiratory Research

Table 3 Characteristics of adult COPD patients (n = 389)- Comparison between the "Most costly" patients and the remainder.

Variable		"Most costly"*	The remainder	P value
N		98	291
Age (yrs)^†		70 (65 - 77)	67 (58 - 76)	0.003^‡
Males (%)		84.7%	75.3%	0.05^§
BMI (kg/m²)^†		27 (24 - 30)	27 (24 - 31)	0.74^‡
Pack yrs smoking (yrs)^†		50 (35 - 80)	50 (29 - 75)	0.10^‡
FEV₁ (% predicted)^†		44 (33 - 56)	49 (38 - 61)	0.03^‡
GOLD class 3 or 4		62.2%	51.2%	0.06^§
Number of morbidity conditions^†		6 (4 - 8)	3 (1 - 4)	<0.001^‡
Age adjusted CCI^†		9 (7 - 11)	5 (3 - 8)	<0.001^‡
Education (yrs of schooling) ^†,‖		12 (8 - 12)	10 (4 - 12)	0.07^‡
	Low	83%	80%
Income^¶,‖	Average	10%	10%	0.85^§
	High	7%	10%
PSQI^†,‖		13 (7 - 16)	11 (6 - 16)	0.48^‡
SGRQ^†,‖		67.7 (43.5 - 77.1)	57.7 (41.8 - 72.3)	0.17^‡
HUI3^†,‖		0.6 (0.3 - 0.7)	0.7 (0.3 - 0.8)	0.13^‡

Abbreviations: BMI- body mass index, FEV₁- forced expired volume in one second (as percent predicted), GOLD- global initiative for chronic obstructive lung disease, CCI- Charlson Comorbidity Index, PSQI- Pittsburgh sleep quality index, SGRQ- St Georges Respiratory Questionnaire, HUI3- health utilities index mark 3.
* The "most costly" patients are those whose annualized utilization cost was within the upper 25 percentile; ^† median (25-75 percentiles); ^‡ Mann-Whitney U test; ^§ Chi-square test; ^‖ This indicator was calculated on the subsample of 177 patients; ^¶ Self reported income levels were defined as Low/Average/High relative to the average monthly income ($2,160/month).

ISSN: 1465-993X