Table 3:

Percentage of patients with COPD aged 67 years and older who had a medication added^* to their treatment in the year following their pulmonary function test date or equivalent^†, in the propensity score matched sample overall, and in patients who received their diagnosis in the ambulatory care or hospital settings

Medication	Medication added to treatment		p value
Medication	Patients with peridiagnostic pulmonary function testing, %	Patients without peridiagnostic pulmonary function testing, %	p value
Overall
Long-acting anticholinergic	44.5	25.4	< 0.001
Long-acting β agonist	3.0	1.8	< 0.001
Long-acting β agonist and inhaled corticosteroid combination	30.1	18.7	< 0.001
Inhaled corticosteroid	13.6	12.5	0.04
COPD diagnosed in the ambulatory care setting
Long-acting anticholinergic	44.1	21.0	< 0.001
Long-acting β agonist	2.7	1.1	< 0.001
Long-acting β agonist and inhaled corticosteroid combination	28.6	16.9	< 0.001
Inhaled corticosteroid	12.5	10.7	0.01
COPD diagnosed in the hospital setting
Long-acting anticholinergic	44.9	30.5	< 0.001
Long-acting β agonist	3.3	2.8	0.2
Long-acting β agonist and inhaled corticosteroid combination	31.8	20.9	< 0.001
Inhaled corticosteroid	14.9	14.7	0.8

Note: COPD = chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
↵* A medication was considered to be newly added to a patient’s treatment if there were no prescriptions for the medication in the year before the pulmonary function test date or its equivalent, and at least 1 prescription for it in the year after the pulmonary function test date.
↵† For patients with pulmonary function testing (cases), the pulmonary function test date was the date on which they received their pulmonary function test. For patients without pulmonary function testing (controls), the pulmonary function test equivalent date was determined by calculating the number of days between the pulmonary function test and the index date of their matched case and then counting back that number of days from their index date.