Quality of care for older adults with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma based on comparisons to practice guidelines and smoking status

Table 3 Associations between Smoking Status and Patterns in Health Care among Older Adults with Obstructive Respiratory Disease, 1992–2002*

	Any Spirometry examination^&	Any Pulmonologist visits	Number of Physician Visits	Any Emergency room visits	Any Hospital Days	Number of Hospital Days
	OR (95% CI) †	OR (95% CI)	RR (95% CI)	OR (95% CI)	OR (95% CI)	RR (95% CI)
Smoking history
None	1.00	1.00	1.00	1.00	1.00	1.00
Former smoker	1.00 (0.88–1.13)	1.12 (0.98–1.28)	0.97 (0.94–1.01)	1.06 (0.97–1.17)	1.10 (1.00–1.20)	1.04 (0.99–1.09)
Current smoker	0.76 (0.64–0.91)	0.76 (0.64–0.91)	0.78 (0.75–0.82)	0.87 (0.76–0.99)	0.81 (0.72–0.92)	0.91 (0.85–0.97)

* The base case represents a relatively health 70 year old male with obstructive respiratory disease, but no smoking history. This person resides in a northeastern city and has no drug coverage, over $25,000 in income, and a high school diploma.
† The logistic and negative binomial regression estimates are linearly adjusted for demographic, socioeconomic, health, region and time characteristics (See table 1). The number of hospital days is examined using a two-part model (i.e., logit and negative binomial) because of excess zeros in the count of hospital days.
& All health care measures represent utilization over a calendar year.

ISSN: 1472-6963