Table 2.

Heat map expression of the magnitude of differences between patients’ perceptions reported by GPs and PULs vs those directly reported by the patients

Disease severity			Patientsa (%)	GPs (%)	PULs (%)
COPD perception	MM	A major health problem or somewhat of a health problem	88	89	93
		A minor health problem or not a problem at all	12	11	7
	SVS	A major health problem or somewhat of a health problem	99	91b	95
		A minor health problem or not a problem at all	1	10b	5
Overall impact of COPD on QoL	MM	Not at all limited or slightly limited or somewhat limited	62	69	65
		Very limited or completely limited	38	31	35
	SVS	Not at all limited or slightly limited or somewhat limited	26	76b	49c
		Very limited or completely limited	74	24b	51c
Symptoms perception	MM	Presence of cough	62	79c	77c
	SVS		62	91b	80c
	MM	Presence of dyspnea/shortness of breath	65	69c	85c
	SVS		83	71b	94c
	MM	Presence of phlegm/sputum	53	65c	57
	SVS		59	76b	62
	MM	Presence of chest tightness	28	13c	20c
	SVS		40	19b	20c
	MM	Presence of wheezing	49	30c	28c
	SVS		56	29b	34c
	MM	Presence of tiredness/fatigue	42	31c	22c
	SVS		54	38b	34c

Notes:

^aReference group.

^bTest for statistical significance not performed due to the low number of SVS patients reported by GPs.

^cThe comparison is statistically significant (P<0.05) compared to the reference group. The color green represents domains in which the values were statistically significantly higher in the patients. The color red represents those domains where the perceptions were higher in the physicians than in the patients.

Abbreviations: GPs, general practitioners; MM, mild/moderate; PULs, pulmonologists; QoL, quality of life; SVS, severe/very severe.