Quantitative analysis
COPD
REGRESSION, COPD
There were three levels of analysis: Intention to Treat (ITT), which included all the people randomized at the beginning of the study (excluding those who were later found to not met inclusion criteria for referral, such as immobility after hospital discharge or PFT results that did not indicate COPD) (ITT); people randomly assigned to a study arm and medically cleared (Sub-analysis 1), and people who were randomly assigned, medically cleared, and who had participated in at least 1 PR session (Sub-analysis 2).The ITT analysis compared outcomes for those randomized to TelePR vs. SPR, excluding those who would not have received a referral to PR in real-world practice (i.e., those who were later found not to meet inclusion criteria because they were immobile or did not have COPD, or who became medically unstable). We then performed 2 sub analyses: Sub-analysis 1 for patients who ultimately received medical clearances after referral (i.e., patients who would be allowed to Logistic regression analysis compared the odds ratio of the primary outcome, in 3 sets of models: Continuous variables were summarized using mean, median and standard deviation; categorical variables were summarized using frequency and percentages. Two-sample t-test or nonparametric Wilcoxon test compared the continuous variables, and Chi-squared test or Fisher’s exact test compared categorical variables. To compare continuous variables between day 1 and 8-weeks, we used a paired t-test or nonparametric signed rank test, and a generalized linear mixed models (repeated measures analysis of variance “MMRMA”) to determine whether there was a difference in the change over time between the arms, and if the magnitude of change depended on treatment arm (treatment x time interaction). Unstructured covariance was used in all the models. Adherence was separately included as a covariable to examine its role on the primary outcome in the models.