A case scenario study for the assessment of physician's behavior in the management of COPD: the WHY study.

Introduction COPD is a global public health concern that causes significant morbidity and mortality with an increasing trend. 1 In 2011, age and gender standardized national prevalence rates of COPD in Turkey were reported to be 5.3% and 4.0%, respectively, when the disease was diagnosed based on pulmonary function tests (PFTs) and physicians’ assessments. 2 Owing to the discordance between these two rates, a practice pattern study (ALPHABET) was conducted to examine how COPD patients were evaluated in real life. 3 The ALPHABET study showed that the ratio of forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV 1 ) to forced vital capacity was ≥70% in 40% of the patients previously diagnosed with COPD.

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