The effects of the education and counseling program on dyspnea,health status and care dependency in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

The aim of this quasi-experimental study was to determine the effects of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease based Education and Counseling Program (COPD-ECP) on dyspnea, the health status and care dependency in patients with COPD and to assess the feasibility of COPD-ECP. The study was carried out in Ankara Ataturk Chest Diseases and Chest Surgery Training and Research Hospital between August 2017 and March 2018 in 30 patients with COPD. The patients were visited once a week between 1th and 4th weeks, and the sections in the booklet were explained to the patients. Following, phone-interviews were performed once a week between 5th and 8th weeks to maintain education and counseling, and no intervention was applied between 8th and 12th weeks. The Dsypnea-12 Scale, the COPD Assessment Test (CAT), the Care Dependency Scale (CDS), the Phone Counseling Follow-up Form were used and Visual Analog Scale (VAS) was utilized to provide subjective assessments of the symptoms and satisfaction with COPD-ECP in the study, respectively. The data (The Dsypnea-12 Scale, CAT and CDS) were collected during the first interview (0 week), and 4th, 8th and 12th weeks of the study via face to face. When the measurements of the baseline (0 week) and final assessment (12th week) were compared in the study, there was a significant decrease in the Dsypnea-12 Scale and the CAT scores and a significant increase in the CDS scores of the patients (p<0.05). The patients reported that satisfying with COPD-ECP based on VAS with a score of 9.0. It was concluded that COPD-ECP decreased the severity of dyspnea and care dependency and improved the health status of the patients. It is suggested that COPD-ECP can be applied by nurses to alleviate the symptoms and further randomized controlled trials make contributions to the field may be conducted.