TY - JOUR T1 - Are clinical risk scores for COPD useful? JF - BMJ Open Respiratory Research JO - BMJ Open Resp Res DO - 10.1136/bmjresp-2014-000072 VL - 2 IS - 1 SP - e000072 AU - Jennifer K Quint Y1 - 2015/04/01 UR - http://bmjopenrespres.bmj.com/content/2/1/e000072.abstract N2 - Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the second most common cause of emergency admission to hospital in the UK and one of the most costly inpatient conditions treated by the National Health Service (NHS).1 One in eight people over the age of 35 has undiagnosed COPD and, in recent years, there have been public health campaigns to identify those ‘missing millions’ in the UK.2 COPD is a diagnosis based on clinical symptoms, confirmed by the presence of obstructive spirometry3 and there is unreliable evidence for the initiation of large scale screening approaches to identify individuals at high risk. Therefore, a mechanism by which individuals can easily be identified as being high risk, from general practice (GP) databases, and be invited for spirometry, has important public health implications.Electronic health records (EHR) are an increasingly popular resource in which to conduct research. Owing to the large volume of patients encompassed, they provide tremendous statistical power to answer many clinical questions. However, the devil is in the detail, as the outcomes obtained from this type of research are only as good as the … ER -