Associations between chronic comorbidity and exacerbation risk in primary care patients with COPD

Table 5 Comorbidities associated with development of a first exacerbation in the study population, corrected for age and sex (results from multivariable Cox regression analysis), sorted by p-value

	Cox hazard ratio (95% CI)	p-value
Comorbidity^a,b
Bronchiectasis/chronic bronchitis	1 · 50 (1 · 31–1 · 73)	<0 · 001
Heart failure	1 · 41 (1 · 29–1 · 55)	<0 · 001
Depression	1 · 34 (1 · 20–1 · 50)	<0 · 001
Atrial fibrillation	1 · 27 (1 · 16–1 · 40)	<0 · 001
Asthma	1 · 24 (1 · 14–1 · 36)	<0 · 001
Peripheral vascular disease	1 · 15 (1 · 07–1 · 24)	<0 · 001
Prostate disorders	1 · 20 (1 · 04–1 · 45)	0 · 002
Blindness & low vision	1 · 11 (1 · 03–1 · 20)	0 · 009
Coronary heart disease	1 · 10 (1 · 02–1 · 17)	0 · 011
Dyspepsia, gastroesophageal reflux	1 · 10 (1 · 02–1 · 20)	0 · 013
Pulmonary cancer	1 · 23 (1 · 04–1 · 45)	0 · 016
Recurrent sinusitis	1 · 53 (1 · 05–2 · 24)	0 · 028
Osteoporosis/osteopenia	1 · 12 (1 · 01–1 · 25)	0 · 037
Comorbidity category^{b, c}
Respiratory (excl. pulmonary cancer)	1 · 26 (1 · 17–1 · 36)	<0 · 001
Urogenital (male and female)	1 · 18 (1 · 10–1 · 27)	<0 · 001
Cardiovascular	1 · 16 (1 · 08–1 · 24)	<0 · 001
Mental health	1 · 16 (1 · 08–1 · 24)	<0 · 001
Eye and ear	1 · 09 (1 · 02–1 · 16)	0 · 013
Digestive	1 · 07 (1 · 00–1 · 15)	0 · 042

^aAll chronic comorbidities with prevalence ≥5% and cardiopulmonary comorbidities were included in the multivariate Cox regression model
^bReference category was ‘comorbidity not diagnosed before study period’ (i.e., 1 January, 2012)
^cAll ICPC comorbidity categories were included in the multivariate Cox regression model