Journal article
Mortality in Western Australian seniors with chronic respiratory diseases: a cohort study
Kristjana Einarsdottir, David B Preen, Frank M Sanfilippo, Raylene Reeve, Jon D Emery, C D'Arcy J Holman
BMC PUBLIC HEALTH | BIOMED CENTRAL LTD | Published : 2010
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Relatively few studies have examined survival by pharmacotherapy level and the effects of patient characteristics on mortality by pharmacotherapy level in older chronic respiratory disease (CRD) patients. This study aimed to investigate these issues in older (> or = 65) CRD patients in Western Australia. METHODS: We identified 108,312 patients > or = 65 years with CRD during 1992-2006 using linked medical, pharmaceutical, hospital and mortality databases held by the Commonwealth and State governments. Pharmacotherapy classification levels were designed by a clinical consensus panel. Cox regression was used to investigate the study aim. RESULTS: Patients using only short acting br..
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Funding Acknowledgements
We wish to thank the Australian Department of Health and Ageing, Medicare Australia and the Australian Electoral Commission as well as the WA Department of Health and the Registrar Generals Office of WA for providing the data used for this investigation. We are furthermore grateful to the Data Linkage Branch of the WA Department of Health for extracting and linking the data. We also thank the clinical consensus panel who developed guidelines for the CRD pharmacotherapy levels: Dr Christopher Beer; Dr Nick Bretland; Ms Helen Brown; Ms Amanda Bryce; Prof David Bruce; Dr Maureen Cazalet; Mr Mark Coles; Dr Ted Collinson; Dr Nick Cooke; Dr Peter Foley; Dr Khoo; and Dr Patrick Mulhern. The research was supported by a project grant from Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council.