The Effect of Comorbidities and Smoking Cessation Duration on the Health-related Quality of Life of Adult Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease in the United States

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is one of the diseases that causes a huge burden to the health status of patients. Inflammation cause progressive obstruction to the airflow in the lung. Therefore, COPD patients may have poor health-related quality of life (HRQoL) because of their disease. HRQoL is defined as the discernments of mental health and physical health of the patient including the functional status, socioeconomic status, social support, health risks and conditions. This study aims to undergo an integrated analysis to strengthen our understanding of the effects of COPD, comorbidities, and smoking cessation duration on the HRQoL of COPD patients in the United States.

Methods: This study uses the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) 2014 database as well as different statistical methods and predictive models to accomplish the goals of this research.

Results: The logistic regression models showed that COPD patients who have stopped smoking within the past month have mostly higher risks of having activity limitations (15.61%), poor mental health (44.00%), and poor physical health (25.44%) when compared to the cessation of 10 years. Furthermore, obese COPD patients have mostly higher risks of having difficulties in walking or climbing stairs (101.23%), activity limitations (73.27%), and poor physical health (37.51%) when compared to patients who have normal weight. Moreover, diabetic COPD patients have increased risks of having activity limitations (114.48%) with relatively similar results for the other HRQoL indicator when compared to COPD alone.

Moreover, patients with COPD and coronary heart disease have more risks of having difficulties in doing errands alone (73.92%) with similar results for the other indicators when compared to COPD alone. In addition, patients with COPD and stroke have increased risks of having activity limitations (40.71%) with also similar results for the other HRQoL factors when compared to the patients with COPD alone.

Conclusion: Therefore, this study shows the importance of early smoking cessation and the effect of different comorbidities on the HRQoL for adult COPD patients. It suggests that the disease of those patients should be assessed and monitored for getting better disease outcomes and improved management of the disease.