Characteristics of patients referred to Canary Island pneumology outpatient services for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: the EPOCan study

Modelling the longitudinal measurement of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease outpatient follow-up in the northwestern Ethiopia

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is a condition which can be prevented and treated and is characterized by difficulty of breathing that is not entirely curable. The overall objective of this study was to model the variation of longitudinal measurement over time for outpatients with chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases at the University of Gondar referral hospital. From February 1, 2019, to February 1, 2022, a retrospective study of outpatients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease was conducted in a hospital. The data was extracted from all patients' data records from the patient's chart. The information includes the fundamental demographic and clinical details of each outpatients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Mixed linear model were used to investigate the determinant factor of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. From a total of 266 outpatients, Averages of the ratio of forced expiratory volume to forced vital capacity among chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients were 0.65, with a standard deviation of 0.043. Comorbidities (average = 2.18, 95% CI 0.43:3.9, P = 0.0133), HIV(average = 4.83, 95% CI 1.94:7.72, P = 0.0012), education (average = 2.98; 95% CI 0.75:4.8, P = 0.008), and weight (average = 0.178, 95% CI 0.045:0.311, P = 0.009) are risk factors for change in forced vital capacity. This study clearly shows that there is a high COPD prevalence in Ethiopia. The risk factors for chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases are the smoking status, comorbidities, HIV, education status of the patient, weight, and time of the visit.

Joint modeling of forced vital capacity measures with time to onset of polycythemia among chronic obstructive pulmonary outpatients follows-up: A case of University of Gondar Referral Hospital

Background and Aims

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) causes airflow obstruction and respiratory problems. Thus, the main objective of this study was to determine the risk factors for the progression of COPD using longitudinally measured forced vital capacity with time to onset of polycythemia outpatients follow-up.

Methods

A retrospective study design was used to gather the related data on longitudinal change of forced vital capacity and time to onset of polycythemia from the medical charts. The joint model consists of a longitudinal submodel for the change of forced vital capacity and a survival submodel for the time to onset of polycythemia of chronic obstructive pulmonary patients.

Results

From the total of 266 patient's estimated value of forced vital capacity of chronic obstructive pulmonary patients was 74.45 years with a standard deviation of 8.59. The estimated value of the association parameter was -0.006, which indicates that the lower value for a forced vital capacity measure was associated with the higher risk of polycythemia and vice versa "Based on the joint model analysis found that the predictor smoking, comorbidities, marital status, weight, and HIV" jointly affected the two responses, which are change of forced vital capacity and time to onset of polycythemia among chronic obstructive pulmonary patients.

Conclusion

The overall performance of separate and joint models, joint modeling of longitudinal measures with the time-to-event outcome was the best model due to smaller standard errors and statistical significance of both the association parameters.