Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Content
    • Current Issue
    • Online First
    • Multimedia
    • Collections
    • Past Issues
    • Articles by Subject
    • Articles by Type
    • Supplements
    • The Issue in Brief (Plain Language Summaries)
    • Call for Papers
  • Info for
    • Authors
    • Reviewers
    • Media
    • Job Seekers
  • About
    • Annals of Family Medicine
    • Editorial Staff & Boards
    • Sponsoring Organizations
    • Copyrights & Permissions
    • Announcements
  • Engage
    • Engage
    • e-Letters (Comments)
    • Subscribe
    • RSS
    • Email Alerts
    • Journal Club
  • Contact
    • Feedback
    • Contact Us
  • Careers

User menu

  • My alerts

Search

  • Advanced search
Annals of Family Medicine
  • My alerts
Annals of Family Medicine

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Content
    • Current Issue
    • Online First
    • Multimedia
    • Collections
    • Past Issues
    • Articles by Subject
    • Articles by Type
    • Supplements
    • The Issue in Brief (Plain Language Summaries)
    • Call for Papers
  • Info for
    • Authors
    • Reviewers
    • Media
    • Job Seekers
  • About
    • Annals of Family Medicine
    • Editorial Staff & Boards
    • Sponsoring Organizations
    • Copyrights & Permissions
    • Announcements
  • Engage
    • Engage
    • e-Letters (Comments)
    • Subscribe
    • RSS
    • Email Alerts
    • Journal Club
  • Contact
    • Feedback
    • Contact Us
  • Careers
  • Follow annalsfm on Twitter
  • Visit annalsfm on Facebook
Article CommentaryAnnals Journal ClubA

Using Spirometry to Appropriately Diagnose COPD

Tessa Rohrberg
The Annals of Family Medicine January 2015, 13 (1) iii; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1370/afm.1722
Tessa Rohrberg
Roles: Resident Representative, Editorial Advisory Board
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Article
  • Info & Metrics
  • eLetters
  • PDF
Loading

The Annals of Family Medicine encourages readers to develop a learning community of those seeking to improve health care and health through enhanced primary care. You can participate by conducting a RADICAL journal club and sharing the results of your discussions in the Annals online discussion for the featured articles. RADICAL is an acronym for Read, Ask, Discuss, Inquire, Collaborate, Act, and Learn. The word radical also indicates the need to engage diverse participants in thinking critically about important issues affecting primary care and then acting on those discussions.1

HOW IT WORKS

In each issue, the Annals selects an article or articles and provides discussion tips and questions. We encourage you to take a RADICAL approach to these materials and to post a summary of your conversation in our online discussion. (Open the article online and click on “TRACK Discussion: Submit a comment.”) You can find discussion questions and more information online at: http://www.AnnFamMed.org/site/AJC/.

CURRENT SELECTION

Article for Discussion

van Dijk W, Tan W, Li P, et al. Clinical relevance of fixed ratio vs lower limit of normal of FEV1/FVC in COPD: patient-reported outcomes from the CanCOLD cohort. Ann Fam Med. 2015;13(1):41–48.

Discussion Tips

This article analyzes data from the cross-sectional phase of a population-based cohort study in Canada to examine the clinical relevance of different combinations of spirometry criteria for diagnosing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The study considers the impact of misdiagnosis of COPD while exploring diagnostic criteria and the relationship to clinically relevant disease.

Discussion Questions

  • What question is asked by this study and why does it matter?

  • How does this study advance beyond previous research and clinical practice on this topic?

  • How strong is the study design for answering the question?

  • What other modifying factors may be important to consider?

  • To what degree can the findings be accounted for by:

    1. How patients were selected, excluded, or lost to follow-up?

    2. How the main variables were measured—both the diagnostic criteria and the outcome variables?

    3. Confounding (false attribution of causality because 2 variables discovered to be associated actually are associated with a 3rd factor)?

    4. Chance?

    5. How the findings were interpreted?

  • What are the main study findings?

  • How comparable is the study sample to similar patients in your practice? What is your judgment about the transportability of the findings?

  • What contextual factors are important for interpreting the findings?

  • How might this study change your practice? Policy? Education? Research?

  • Who the constituencies are for the findings, and how they might be engaged in interpreting or using the findings?

  • What are the next steps in interpreting or applying the findings?

  • What might be the financial impact of this study’s results?

  • What researchable questions remain?

  • © 2015 Annals of Family Medicine, Inc.

References

  1. ↵
    1. Stange KC,
    2. Miller WL,
    3. McLellan LA,
    4. et al
    . Annals Journal Club: It’s time to get RADICAL. Ann Fam Med. 2006;4(3):196–197. http://annfammed.org/content/4/3/196.
    OpenUrlFREE Full Text
PreviousNext
Back to top

In this issue

The Annals of Family Medicine: 13 (1)
The Annals of Family Medicine: 13 (1)
Vol. 13, Issue 1
January/February 2015
  • Table of Contents
  • Index by author
  • Back Matter (PDF)
  • Front Matter (PDF)
  • In Brief
Print
Download PDF
Article Alerts
Sign In to Email Alerts with your Email Address
Email Article

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on Annals of Family Medicine.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Using Spirometry to Appropriately Diagnose COPD
(Your Name) has sent you a message from Annals of Family Medicine
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the Annals of Family Medicine web site.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
4 + 10 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.
Citation Tools
Using Spirometry to Appropriately Diagnose COPD
Tessa Rohrberg
The Annals of Family Medicine Jan 2015, 13 (1) iii; DOI: 10.1370/afm.1722

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Get Permissions
Share
Using Spirometry to Appropriately Diagnose COPD
Tessa Rohrberg
The Annals of Family Medicine Jan 2015, 13 (1) iii; DOI: 10.1370/afm.1722
Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Jump to section

  • Article
    • HOW IT WORKS
    • CURRENT SELECTION
    • References
  • Info & Metrics
  • eLetters
  • PDF

Related Articles

  • No related articles found.
  • Google Scholar

Cited By...

  • In This Issue: Views from Above and Below
  • In This Issue: Developing and Amplifying the Effectiveness of the Primary Care Workforce
  • Google Scholar

More in this TOC Section

  • Self-Rooming Patients in Health System?
  • Continuity of Care as a Quality Metric
  • Evaluation of Community Health Worker Intervention in San Antonio
Show more ANNALS JOURNAL CLUB

Similar Articles

Content

  • Current Issue
  • Past Issues
  • Past Issues in Brief
  • Multimedia
  • Articles by Type
  • Articles by Subject
  • Multimedia
  • Supplements
  • Online First
  • Calls for Papers

Info for

  • Authors
  • Reviewers
  • Media
  • Job Seekers

Engage

  • E-mail Alerts
  • e-Letters (Comments)
  • RSS
  • Journal Club
  • Submit a Manuscript
  • Subscribe
  • Family Medicine Careers

About

  • About Us
  • Editorial Board & Staff
  • Sponsoring Organizations
  • Copyrights & Permissions
  • Contact Us
  • eLetter/Comments Policy

© 2023 Annals of Family Medicine