Background and Objective: Comorbidity and especially cardiovascular diseases are common among patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The primary purpose of this study was to identify drugs for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases in COPD patients. The secondary purpose was to analyze whether the use of cardiovascular drugs differs between patients with mild and severe COPD symptoms. Method: The study was a retrospective cross-sectional study of 421 COPD patients whose drug lists were analyzed and cardiovascular drugs were identified. These drugs were then divided into eight drug groups, based on the drug's ATC (Anatomic Therapeutic Chemical classification system) codes. Only patients with reported cardiovascular diseases were included in the analysis. Patients with mild and severe COPD symptoms were identified. Thereafter, the patients were divided into two groups based on the COPD symptoms. Chi-squared test was performed to see if the use of cardiovascular drugs differs between patients with mild and severe COPD symptoms. Setting: Primary and secondary care patients with COPD in Gävle and Dalarna. Main outcome measures: Identify and analyze the use of cardiovascular drugs in COPD patients with mild and severe symptoms. Results: The results of the survey showed that cardiovascular drugs were used by 274 (65%) of the COPD patients. Among them, 66 % with severe COPD symptoms and 34 % with mild symptoms. The use of the eight cardiovascular drug groups were similar between patients with mild and severe COPD symptoms. There wasn’t any statistically significant difference in the use of cardiovascular drugs between patients with mild and severe COPD symptoms (p= 0,893). Conclusions: There wasn’t any difference in the use of cardiovascular drugs among patients with mild and severe COPD symptoms. However, this result needs to be substantiated with a follow-up study with a larger study population and longer study time to be generalizable.
Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-466435 |
Date | January 2020 |
Creators | Essa, Sara |
Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för farmaci |
Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
Language | Swedish |
Detected Language | English |
Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
Format | application/pdf |
Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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