Figures
- Fig. 1—
Association between forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) and cue importance. Lines represent patients ranking each cue as: most important (•; n = symptoms 14, activity 3, emotions 1, social 3); second most important (○; n = symptoms 6, activity 5, emotions 2, social 8); third most important (♦; n = symptoms 0, activity 9, emotions 6, social 5); and least important (⋄; n = symptoms 0, activity 4, emotions 9, social 3). One patient rated symptoms as third most important, but did not perform FEV1. Five patients gave two cues joint ranks, findings were similar whichever cue was used in the analysis. None of the associations were significant (p>0.05).
- Fig. 2—
Dendrogram resulting from the cluster analysis of the 21 reliable patients to test whether patients fell into groups in terms of the relative importance to them of the four cues.
- Fig. 3—
Mean cue scores for the two policy clusters found among the reliable patients. □: symptoms; ▒: activity; ▓: emotions;
: social. Difference between clusters: *: p<0.05; #: p<0.001; ¶: p<0.0001. n = 10 (cluster 1); n = 11 (cluster 2).
Tables
- Table. 1—
Comparison of the scores of reliable and less reliable patients on the demographic and health-related variables
Reliable# Less reliable p-value Age yrs 46.2 56.4 0.04 Sex M/F 10/11 5/13 NS FEV1 72.7 62.8 NS Disease duration 63.1 44.7 NS SGRQ total score 34.1 48.2 0.01 Global asthma 2.7 4.3 0.04 Anxiety 7.3 6.4 NS Depression 2.7 4.5 NS Medication regimen simple/complex 19/2 8/10 0.002 M: male; F: female; FEV1: forced expiratory volume in one second; SGRQ: St George's Respiratory Questionnaire; NS: nonsignificant. #: Pearson's r between ratings of replicated cases ≥6.
- Table. 2—
Judgement analysis-derived weights and the importance of cues to patients' judgments of global asthma severity
Cue Weight# Patients ranking the cue as: First Second Third Fourth Symptoms Less reliable 39 (18–70) 11 3 4 0 Reliable¶ 54 (15–86) 14 6 1 0 Activity Less reliable 20 (1–34) 1 10 4 3 Reliable¶ 18 (6–73) 3 5 9 4 Emotions Less reliable 18 (2–43) 4 3 4 7 Reliable¶ 11 (0–31) 1 3 8 9 Social Less reliable 22 (3–49) 2 4 7 5 Reliable¶ 17 (2–57) 3 9 6 3 Data are presented as mean (range) or n. Rank ordering of cues was performed using weights elicited by judgment analysis. There were no significant differences (Chi-squared test p>0.05) in the mean weight or the ranking of weights between the two groups of patients (less reliable patients n = 18, reliable patients n = 21). #: out of 100; ¶: judgments of replicated cases r≥0.6.
- Table. 3—
Relationship, in reliable patients, between disease duration and the importance of cues to overall asthma severity
Cue rank Symptoms cue# Activity cue¶ Emotions cue NS Social cue+ First 76.8±30.3 54.6±28.6 33.9 16.9±15.2 14 3 1 3 Second 27.1±16.1 72.8±38.8 74.2±17.3 80.8±27.2 6 5 3 8 Third 85.7 47.1±34.9 81.3±30.8 57.0±35.4 1 9 8 6 Fourth 93.1±6.4 46.4±36.2 71.2±30.8 0 4 9 4 Data are presented as mean±sd or n. Disease duration is expressed as the percentage of life spent diagnosed as asthmatic. Cue rank is the rank order of a cue's weight in relation to the weights of the other three cues. Judgments of replicated cases r≥0.6; n = 21. NS: nonsignificant. #: p = 0.006; ¶: p = 0.05; +: p = 0.02.
