Pulmonary rehabilitation during acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a mixed-methods approach

Abstract

Acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPD) account for more than 70% of disease-related costs and negatively impact patients’ health status. Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) is a cornerstone intervention for the management of stable disease with the potential to be equally effective in AECOPD. However, studies assessing PR role during/shortly-after AECOPD have been mainly conducted in inpatient settings, despite most AECOPD being managed in the community, and have been delivering PR with different components, intensities, durations and outcome measures, not considering patients’ needs/expectations. This has led to controversial results across studies. To overcome these drawbacks, adequately powered studies delivering well-designed community-based PR programmes and exploring patients’ perspectives are urgently needed to guide research and clinical practice. This mixed-methods project proposes to design/implement and evaluate a community-based PR programme specifically tailored to patients’ self-reported and clinical needs during AECOPD.