Perception of symptoms and quality of life – comparison of patients’ and physicians’ views in the COPD MIRROR study

Figures & data

Table 1 Characteristics of patients directly answering the questionnaire (patients) and those reported by GPs or PULs

	Patients, n=334	GPs, n=333	PULs, n=333	P-valuea (patients vs GPs)	P-valuea (patients vs PULs)
Age strata (years), n (%)
45–54	98 (29.3)	87 (26.1)	42 (12.6)	0.002	<0.001
55–64	153 (45.8)	121 (36.3)	136 (40.8)
65+	83 (24.9)	125 (37.5)	155 (46.5)
Gender, female, N (%)	139 (41.6)	37 (11.1)	28 (8.4)	<0.001	<0.001
Education level, N (%)
Elementary/middle school	150 (44.9)	227 (68.2)	213 (64.0)	<0.001	<0.001
High school/university	184 (55.1)	73 (21.9)	90 (27.0)
Working status, N (%)
Employed	148 (44.3)	169 (50.8)	137 (41.1)	<0.001	<0.001
Retired	121 (36.2)	133 (40.0)	168 (50.5)
Unemployed	28 (8.4)	19 (5.7)	16 (4.8)
Occupational disability	34 (10.2)	6 (1.8)	9 (2.7)
Living status, N (%)
Alone	75 (22.5)	33 (9.9)	14 (4.2)
With the family	251 (75.1)	293 (88.0)	314 (94.3)	<0.001	<0.001
Others	8 (2.4)	7 (2.1)	5 (1.5)
Smoker, N (%)	129 (38.6)	112 (33.6)	77 (23.1)	0.18	<0.001
COPD severity, N (%)
Mild	46 (13.8)	139 (41.7)	31 (9.3)	<0.001	0.04
Moderate	188 (56.3)	173 (52.0)	183 (55.0)
Severe	93 (27.8)	19 (5.7)	101 (30.3)
Very severe	7 (2.1)	2 (0.6)	18 (5.4)

Notes:

a P-value resulting from chi-square test or Fisher’s exact test, as appropriate. Comparisons between patients and GPs and between patients and PULs were performed separately.

Abbreviations: GPs, general practitioners; PULs, pulmonologists.

Table 2 Heat map expression of the magnitude of differences between patients’ perceptions reported by GPs and PULs vs those directly reported by the patients

Disease severity			Patientsa (%)	GPs (%)	PULs (%)
COPD perception	MM	A major health problem or somewhat of a health problem	88	89	93
		A minor health problem or not a problem at all	12	11	7
	SVS	A major health problem or somewhat of a health problem	99	91b	95
		A minor health problem or not a problem at all	1	10b	5
Overall impact of COPD on QoL	MM	Not at all limited or slightly limited or somewhat limited	62	69	65
		Very limited or completely limited	38	31	35
	SVS	Not at all limited or slightly limited or somewhat limited	26	76b	49c
		Very limited or completely limited	74	24b	51c
Symptoms perception	MM	Presence of cough	62	79c	77c
	SVS		62	91b	80c
	MM	Presence of dyspnea/shortness of breath	65	69c	85c
	SVS		83	71b	94c
	MM	Presence of phlegm/sputum	53	65c	57
	SVS		59	76b	62
	MM	Presence of chest tightness	28	13c	20c
	SVS		40	19b	20c
	MM	Presence of wheezing	49	30c	28c
	SVS		56	29b	34c
	MM	Presence of tiredness/fatigue	42	31c	22c
	SVS		54	38b	34c

Notes:

a Reference group.

b Test for statistical significance not performed due to the low number of SVS patients reported by GPs.

c The comparison is statistically significant (P<0.05) compared to the reference group. The color green represents domains in which the values were statistically significantly higher in the patients. The color red represents those domains where the perceptions were higher in the physicians than in the patients.

Abbreviations: GPs, general practitioners; MM, mild/moderate; PULs, pulmonologists; QoL, quality of life; SVS, severe/very severe.

Figure 1 COPD impact on QoL and its domains as perceived by the patients and by GPs and PULs answering about patients’ perception.

Notes: Mean values of the scores assigned to QoL and its domains stratified by disease severity. *Student’s t-test for the comparison between scores directly assigned by patients and those reported by PULs is statistically significant. t-tests for the comparisons between scores directly assigned by patients and those reported by GPs for the severe/very severe class were not performed due to the low number of GPs describing a patient with severe or very severe COPD.
Abbreviations: GPs, general practitioners; PULs, pulmonologists; QoL, quality of life.

Figure 2 COPD impact on daily activities subdomains as perceived by the patients and by GPs and PULs answering about patients’ perception.

Notes: Mean values of the scores assigned stratified by disease severity. *Student’s t-test for the comparison between scores directly assigned by patients and those reported by PULs is statistically significant. t-tests for the comparisons between scores directly assigned by patients and those reported by GPs for the severe/very severe class were not performed due to the low number of GPs describing a patient with severe or very severe COPD.
Abbreviations: GPs, general practitioners; PULs, pulmonologists.

Figure 3 Patients’ attitude during the visit with the health care professional of reference as perceived by patients, GPs, and PULs.

Note: *The comparison with patients directly answering the questionnaire is statistically significant based on the results from chi-square test.
Abbreviations: GPs, general practitioners; PULs, pulmonologists.