Examination of the care dependence of individuals who have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)

This is a descriptive research that has been made with the objective of determining the care dependence of individuals who have Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The sample of the reasearch was consisted of 110 3rd and 4th phase COPD patients who were treated at Lung Diseases Clinic of one of the University Hospital. A "Patient identifying form" which includes socio-demographical features of patients, a "Care Dependency Scale", a "Baseline Dispnea Index" was used to gather the data that was required for research. The data has been gathered by making face-to-face conversations with patients and analyzed with a packaged softwere called SPSS 18.0 Variance Analysis, Kruskal Wallis Variance Analysis and Mann-Whitney U test was used in independent group comparisons. The patients who were attended to the research had an age average of 61,55±9,15 and %87,3 of them were male; %55,5 of them are at the third phase, %44,5 of them were at the fourth phase of the COPD. Total average score of Care Dependancy Scale was 48,80±9,48. Care Dependency Scale of the patients has been determined as strictly dependent in domains of mobility, day/night cycle, body hygiene, daily activities, entertainment areas; and partly dependent in domains of nutrition, body posture, dressing-undressing, body temperature, avoiding dangers, communication, prayer, conform to rules and learning ability. A meaningful difference has been detected between the Care Dependency Scale average score and age, gender, education, occupation and the phase of COPD. A strong relation has been detected in positive direction between Care Dependency Scale and Basaline Dispne Index average score. As a result, according to the scores obtained from the care dependency scale was found to be dependent on the middle level of the patient. Key Words: Care Dependency, Nursing, COPD