Multidimensional analyses to assess the relations between treatment choices by physicians and patients’ characteristics: the example of COPD

Table 5 Explanation of the overall treatment variation by 6 families of clinical variables

Family	Selected variables	Adjusted R²	P value
Socio-demographics	stature, age, lifestyle (living alone,…),	0.0047	0.001
History of COPD and comorbidities	history of right ventricular failure, emphysema, sleep apnea, asthma, dyspnea, chronic sputum production, ischemic heart disease.	0.01998	0.001
Symptoms the days of visit	dyspnea (MRC), chronic bronchitis	0.02515	0.001
Lung function	FEV₁, FEV₁%, FVC,	0.02120	0.001
Exacerbations and smoking status	number of exacerbations, current smoking, current occupational exposure to dust or smoke	0.00626	0.00494
Investigations (d. stands for done and p. for prescribed)	sleep oxymetry d., walking test d., arterial blood gases d., scintigraphy d., polysomnography d., ECG d., VO²max d., VO²max p., 6MWT p., DLCO p., scintigraphy p., EKG p.	0.03927	0.001

The order of variables is the order of their contribution to the explanation of the variation of COPD treatments. d.: done; p.: prescribed.

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