Health status predicts long-term outcomes in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD): Pooled analysis of patient-level data from the COPD biomarker qualification consortium database

Objective: Estimate predictive validity for health status measure, the St. George9s Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ), among patients with COPD. Method: We used SGRQ data from the COPD Biomarker Qualification Consortium database of pooled individual patient data from medium term randomized clinical trials (N=12,043). Adjusted Hazard Ratios (HR) and 95% Confidence Intervals (95%CI) were used to estimate the association between quartiles of SGRQ at baseline, time to first event and time from first to second event for COPD exacerbations, hospital admissions for COPD, and all-cause death. Results: Risk of COPD outcomes increased with increasing quartiles of SGRQ score for all time to first event analyses; p for trend across quartiles <0.0001. Risk estimates for time to second event followed the same pattern; HR failed reaching statistical significance for hospital admissions . Conclusion: In patients with COPD, SGRQ predicts long term outcomes of exacerbation of COPD, hospital admissions, their recurrence and death. Health status assessment should be a part of risk assessment for COPD patients in routine medical care.