Determination of the speleotherapy effect of Damlataş Cave on asthma and COPD patients and evaluation in terms of health tourism

Determination Of The Speleotherapy Effect Of Damlataş Cave On Asthma And Copd Patients And Evaluation In Terms Of Health Tourism Speleotherapy is known to reduce the severity of shortness of breath and increase the quality of life in individuals with respiratory tract disease. In this study, the speleotherapy effect level of Alanya Damlataş Cave, which is known to have speleotherapy effect, and its importance in terms of health tourism were investigated. This research, which was carried out on patients who came to Alanya Damlataş Cave and had speleotherapy experience, it was conducted by face-to-face survey method with 28 individuals with asthma or COPD who came to Alanya Damlataş cave for speleotherapy between November 2019 and June 2021 and met the criteria for participation in the study. Data were collected using the Medical Research Council (MRC) Dyspnea Scale, the Saint George Respiratory Questionnaire, the SF-36 Quality of Life Questionnaire, the Beck Depression Questionnaire, and the Beck Anxiety Questionnaire. The data obtained from the study were analyzed with the help of the IBM Statistics 25.0 package program. After the normality test of the data and the Cronbach's Alpha reliability value were determined, the frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation values of the questions were determined. Wilcoxon and Paired Sample T Test were used to determine whether there was a significant difference before and after speleotherapy. As a result of the study, it was determined that the disease findings of asthma and COPD patients improved after speleotherapy. It was concluded that speleotherapy application provided a statistically significant improvement in the breathing of the participants, increased their quality of life, and decreased the severity of dyspnea and anxiety level. (p<0.05). Keywords: Health Tourism, Thermal Tourism, Speleotherapy, Damlataş Cave.