Chest
Clinical InvestigationsCOPDGeographic Variations in Prevalence and Underdiagnosis of COPD: Results of the IBERPOC Multicentre Epidemiological Study
Section snippets
Design of the Study
This is an epidemiologic, multicenter, population-based studyconducted in seven areas of Spain. The areas included in the study wererepresentative of different climates and comprised urban and ruralpopulations (Fig 1). The description of these areas is shown in Table 1.
Selection of Participants
The total target population consisted of 236,412 subjectsincluded in the administrative census and residing in the seven studyareas. From these, a randomized, age- and sex-stratified sample of5,014 individuals (2,592 women and
Participation and Distribution of the Study Population
The detailed description of participation rates in the study, bothglobal and in different areas, has been publishedrecently.21 In brief, to achieve the aim of 5,014interviews, a total of 5,827 attempts at contact were made, of which860 subjects (14.8%) did not respond and were replaced; 918 subjects(18%) refused to participate, although 882 of these subjects (94.6%)agreed to answer the short questionnaire by telephone. In all, 4,035complete interviews were achieved, which represent 69.2% of the
Discussion
Our results reveal a great variation in the prevalence of COPDamong the different areas studied, with a global prevalence of 9.1%,oscillating between 4.9% and 18%, an evident predominance in men, anda low level of previous diagnosis and treatment.
In this study, we attempted to avoid possible biases derived from ourpopulation sample and the methodology. First, the sample was chosenusing a random sample from of ficial censuses of the populationsstudied, stratified by age groups and sex. Although
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The IBERPOC study is an initiative of the workshop “InsuficienciaRespiratoria y Trastornos del Suenño” of the Spanish Society of Pneumology and Thoracic Surgery.
Funding was obtained from Boehringer Ingelheim Spain, SA.
A further important aspect is the lack of knowledge that manypatients have of the disease. Patients at an early stage of the diseaseare either unaware of their