Association of Illness, Health Status, and Personal Characteristics with the Short-Term Episode of Severe Acute Exacerbations in Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: A 3-Month Prospective

Abstract

The objective of this study was to examine whether illness, health status, and personal character-istics had influence on the short-term episode of severe acute exacerbations in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) during the three months follow-up. A total of 110 patients were recruited from the COPD clinic of each 3 rural hospitals. Illness characteristics included body mass index, smoking status, stage of COPD severity, dyspnea symptom, an accuracy of treatment, history of severe acute exacerbations during the past year, and pneumonia. Health status indicator was including quality of life, and depression. Personal characteristic included age, gender, education, and household income. Data were analyzed using odds ratio (OR), 95%CI, Chi-square, and Fisher exact test. It was found that all of the 3 domains were associated with severe acute exacerbations. Short-term episodes were more likely found in those who presented pneumonia on admission (p<0.001), had previous severe acute exacerbation (p<0.001), depressive (p<0.001), poor quality of life (p<0.01), higher stages of disease (p<0.01), had severely dyspnea on mMRC grading (p<0.01), and found more in women than men (p=0.05). These evidences might support clinical judgment in order to detect those COPD patients who are at-risk of severe acute exacerbations and to prevention the consequences of worsening health outcomes.