Predicting the Risk of Incorrect Inhalation Technique in Patients with Chronic Airway Diseases by a New Predictive Nomogram

Abstract

Shubing Chen,* Yongyi Peng,* Beilan Shen, Liping Zhong, Zhongping Wu, Jinping Zheng, Yi Gao State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Disease, National Center for Respiratory Medicine, First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Yi Gao; Jinping Zheng, Email [email protected]; [email protected]: To develop and internally validate a nomogram for predicting the risk of incorrect inhalation techniques in patients with chronic airway diseases.Methods: A total of 206 patients with chronic airway diseases treated with inhaled medications were recruited in this study. Patients were divided into correct (n=129) and incorrect (n=77) cohorts based on their mastery of inhalation devices, which were assessed by medical professionals. Data were collected on the basis of questionnaires and medical records. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator method (LASSO) and multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted to identify the risk factors of incorrect inhalation techniques. Then, calibration curve, Harrell’s C-index, area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), decision curve analysis (DCA) and bootstrapping validation were applied to assess the apparent performance, clinical validity and internal validation of the predicting model, respectively.Results: Seven risk factors including age, education level, drug cognition, self-evaluation of curative effect, inhalation device use instruction before treatment, post-instruction evaluation and evaluation at return visit were finally determined as the predictors of the nomogram prediction model. The ROC curve obtained by this model showed that the AUC was 0.814, with a sensitivity of 0.78 and specificity of 0.75. In addition, the C-index was 0.814, with a Z value of 10.31 (P< 0.001). It was confirmed to be 0.783 by bootstrapping validation, indicating that the model had good discrimination and calibration. Furthermore, analysis of DCA showed that the nomogram had good clinical validity.Conclusion: The application of the developed nomogram to predict the risk of incorrect inhalation techniques during follow-up visits is feasible.Keywords: inhalation technique, incorrect, chronic airway disease, nomogram, predictors

Keywords

• inhalation technique
• incorrect
• chronic airway disease
• nomogram
• predictors